Top story: These are the opinions of cybersecurity specialists regarding Tea's data breach.
An additional 59,000 photos were "publicly viewable in the app from posts, comments, and direct messages." According to Tea, users who registered prior to February 2024 were affected by the breach. The hack calls into question users' safety and privacy when sharing selfies on apps and how they can stay safe. Rachel Tobac, CEO and co-founder of SocialProof Security, told CNN that while a selfie “by itself is seemingly innocuous,” it could be used to hack bank accounts and other programs when coupled with government-issued identification. She suggested that users of Tea think about using multifactor authentication, a password manager, making social media accounts private, freezing their credit, and utilising tools to remove data broking sites.
According to Tobac, age or identity verification has grown in popularity but is a risky decision for businesses. You must safeguard any information you gather. Additionally, the more information you gather, the more appealing you are to cybercriminals, Tobac stated. According to Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, adopting facial recognition as the standard can also increase the likelihood that hackers or law enforcement organisations will use the data against customers. "We all know that online dating can be toxic, but increased surveillance isn't the answer," Cahn stated.
Because "opting out is really the best protection we have," Cahn advised customers to reconsider disclosing personal information to businesses. Tea is by no means the first dating service to experience a security breach. It was discovered in February 2014 that Tinder, a dating app, had a bug that could reveal users' physical locations without their permission. The company that runs Ashley Madison, a dating site for people looking to cheat on their spouses, claimed in July 2015 that hackers had stolen the personal information of millions of users. A few governments and businesses have acted. Government-issued documents are used in Tinder's verification process. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation in May mandating that Google and Apple confirm the age of app store users.
In conclusion to the threats from AI-driven attacks
According to Richard Blech, CEO and co-founder of AI security firm XSOC Corp., selfies and images can be a "data goldmine" for AI-driven data attacks. According to Blech, images accessed in a breach could also be used for fraud and other misrepresentations, and anyone whose images were accessed should be more watchful of their credit reports because biometric data "isn't going to expire." "You're not getting a new number or changing your password," Blech stated. "There's going to be action on th
