Tea app. Credit score: Instagram @theteapartygirls
Girls’s-only Tea app suffers main information breach, with hackers leaking 1000’s of delicate pictures and IDs on-line, sparking world privateness considerations.
A serious safety breach has rocked the viral ladies’s-only Tea app, with hackers reportedly leaking greater than 13,000 selfies and authorities ID images on-line – most of which belonged to ladies searching for a safer on-line house.
Tea, designed as a platform for girls to flag poisonous behaviour from males, confirmed on July 25, that hackers had breached a database containing over 72,000 pictures, together with verification selfies and ID scans from its person base.
The platform, which not too long ago topped the Apple App Retailer rankings, rose to recognition for permitting customers to anonymously search, fee, and touch upon males – labelling them “purple flags” or “inexperienced flags.”
“Defending our customers’ privateness and information is our highest precedence. Tea is taking each crucial step to make sure the safety of our platform and stop additional publicity,” a Tea spokesperson informed NBC Information.
How was the Tea app hacked?
The leak seems to have been coordinated by way of a 4Chan thread, with customers calling for a “hack and leak” marketing campaign towards the app. On Friday morning, a 4Chan person posted a downloadable hyperlink to the stolen picture database, and identification images rapidly started circulating on each 4Chan and X.
Tea has blamed the breach on an outdated database, initially created in step with cyberbullying prevention necessities. Regardless of this, person selfies had been imagined to be deleted after verification, and screenshots of in-app content material had been blocked.
The platform’s creator, Sean Cook dinner, has beforehand said that Tea was impressed by his mom’s traumatic on-line relationship experiences, together with unknowingly relationship males with felony information.
Tea customers’ messages and areas additionally compromised
On July 28, 404 Media reported {that a} second vulnerability had allowed entry to over 1.1 million direct messages (DMs), a few of which contained extremely private info that might establish customers.
“As a part of our ongoing investigation… we’ve not too long ago realized that some direct messages (DMs) had been accessed,” Tea confirmed to NBC Information, including that the affected system had since been taken offline.
Cybersecurity researcher Kasra Rahjerdi, who found the DM breach, stated others had accessed the database earlier than him, although it stays unclear in the event that they downloaded the information.
Moreover, Google Maps was used to share a map displaying supposed Tea person areas linked to the leak. Notably, the coordinates had been nameless and didn’t embrace names.
The corporate says it’s figuring out affected customers and can supply free identification safety providers. Tea additionally claims to donate 10 per cent of its earnings to the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline, which confirmed the corporate as a professional donor to NBC Information.
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