With just seven days to go before the opening of the Sochi Winter Olympics the most popular Russian gay hook-up app has been hacked affecting all its users in Russia.
Dmitry Tsyvinski, founder of Hunters posted on his Facebook page that the app was attacked between February 1 and 2.

Dmitry said: “I can’t believe it! Last night Hunters was hacked. This attack affected over 72,000 users in Russia, while in Sochi the app was completely blocked.
“The hackers didn’t leave any traces, but it is clear from an obvious spelling mistake that they were not native English speakers. I’m sure that the attackers were acting in the interest of Russian authorities.”
The anonymous threat read: “You will be arrested and jailed for gay propaganda in Sochi according to Russian Federal Law #135 Sektion 6” and was sent on February 1 at 11:52 pm to all users in Russia, including those in Sochi.
Hunters is now blocked in Sochi and Adler and some 72,000 user profiles were deleted throughout Russia. Hackers completely destroyed user profiles and all their messages.
On the morning of February 2, users trying to open the app in Sochi were greeted with an alert saying that their profile was blocked for the next 55,000 minutes (38 days).
Dmitry continued: “It looks like the Russian Government decided to take full control of the Internet and implement Turkish practices where Grindr has been banned for almost half a year. I think that this attack is connected to increasing censorship of the Internet and very soon other gay dating resources in Russia will face similar problems.
“Our team was able to restore 24% of the profiles after 12 hours. All other profiles were unable to be restored. In order to protect our users from future injustice, we have started moving our servers from Russia to Europe and are planning to finish this process within the next 3-5 days. Therefore, Hunters users may face further disruptions in the coming days.
“I urge the entire gay community and all of those who consider the Internet to be a free zone to boycott not only Russian vodka but also everything that is linked to the Olympics and not to buy any Olympic souvenirs.
“This attack should be considered as an attack on the worldwide gay community with the goal of blocking any gay interactions during the Winter Games in Sochi, including those between athletes and locals.”
The Hunters app with over 1,2M users worldwide enables gay guys not only to hook-up but to also find homes, friends and jobs, which is particularly important for gay people in Russia.
On February 3 Dmitry posted on his Facebook page that users’ financial details were not compromised during the attack, as this information is protected by Google and Apple.
A spokesperson for President Putin did not respond to a request for a comment from Gscene.
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