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Tea, a meeting application created to allow women to wonder or warn each other of the men with whom they have emerged, suffered a major data violation, the company revealed in a statement on Friday.
The data that was hacked included 72,000 images, including 13,000 selfies or identity photos used to check the accounts, as well as 59,000 other images which were visible on the application, according to the company’s declaration.
Access to data was “before February 2024,” added the Tea declaration.
Why it matters
The application, which relies on the storage of images so that women can review the men with whom they have come out and are marketed as a “meetings of meetings”, recently exceeded the number one on the App Store.
The hack raises important questions about data confidentiality, in particular for services presented as safe spaces for vulnerable populations.
With millions of users – many submitting sensitive photos and documents for security check – TEA violation highlights the risks of online dating platforms and has renewed a debate on protections for users within digital communities centered on women.
What to know
The company said that only users who registered before February 2024 were affected by the violation, which was linked to archived data which has been kept to comply with the application of the law linked to cyberlisation surveys, and not to active user accounts or recent downloads.
Photos cannot be linked to specific users of the application and no e-mail or digital telephone address has been accessible, according to TEA.
The violation came from the content that had not yet been migrated to the secure platform updated the application, a transition that occurred in February 2024.
Users who joined after this date were not affected, according to tea. Third -party cybersecurity experts have been engaged and the company said that all systems and affected data have now been obtained.
“We are working 24 hours a day with internal security teams and third -party experts to secure our systems. For the moment, we have no evidence that additional or current user data have been accessible,” said TEA in its press release.
Some of the images exhibited, including license photos, would have disseminated on electronic babibllards such as 4chan and RedditAccording to a report by Bbc.
Niklas Graeber / Picture-Alliance / DPA / AP Images
What people say
Tea said in an article on data violation on Friday: “During our first stages of development, inherited content was not migrated in our new fortified system. The hackers broke into our identifier link where the data was stored before February 24, 2024. While we became our community, we have migrated to a more robust and secure solution which made the new users of February 2024 so far not being part of the cybersecurity incident.”
What happens next?
Tea encouraged users to contact their assistance team with any other concern.
The company has embarked on new security measures to prevent any additional violation.
