San Francisco, Aug 2 (IANS): A hacker/hacking group known as ShinyHunters flooded a hacker forum with 386 million user records stolen from 18 companies.

According to BleepingComputer, ShinyHunters last week began uploading the databases to a forum where anyone can download them free of charge.

Of the databases released since July 21, nine of them were already disclosed in some manner in the past.

However, the alleged data breaches at Appen.com, Drizly.com, Havenly.com, IndabaMusic.com, Ivoy.mx, Proctoru.com, Rewards1.com, Scentbird.com and Vakinha.com.br were not reported before, noted BleepingComputer.

Stolen databases are valuable and usually sold privately. Once they lose value, hackers may choose to release the data for free on forums to increase their reputation and exposure.

When the publication asked ShinyHunters why they dumped all of these databases, they were told that they were leaked for everyone's benefit.

"I just thought: 'I've made enough money now' so I leaked for everyone's benefit."

"Obviously, some people are a little upset because they paid resellers a few days ago, but I don't care," ShinyHunters added.

Earlier, ShinyHunters have played a role in high-profile data breaches at HomeChef, Promo.com, Mathway, Chatbooks, Dave.com, Wattpad and even Microsoft's GitHub account.