Dating website Topface paid hacker not to sell stolen data

Boston

TOPFACE, one of the world's largest dating websites, said that it has paid a hacker an undisclosed sum to stop trying to sell about 20 million e-mail addresses stolen from the Russian company.

Topface chief executive Dmitry Filatov said that the company located the hacker, who had published ads to sell the data but had not actually sold them. "We have paid him an award for finding a vulnerability and agreed on further cooperation in the field of data security," Mr Filatov said in an e-mail on Friday, declining to disclose the size of the reward.