Gay Dating App Manhunt Says User Data Was Hacked
Contributed by: kellyseal on Monday, May 03 2021 @ 07:00 am
Last modified on Monday, May 03 2021 @ 08:48 am
Gay dating app Manhunt says that it was hacked in February of this year, and the personal data of a portion of its users was exposed.
A hacker caused the data breach according to a statement submitted by the company to the Washington State Attorney General. Manhunt maintains that the hacker “downloaded the usernames, email addresses and passwords for a subset of our users in early February 2021,” according to The Advocate[*1] .
Manhunt has over 6 million users, and about 7,700 of its users who reside in Washington had their data stolen according to the statement. In total, the company’s attorney says about 11 percent of Manhunt users were affected by the breach.
Manhunt had tweeted in March that all users should change their passwords to “ensure that it meets the updated password requirements.” However, it did not announce at that time it was due to hacking concerns.
Dating apps, and apps in general, have been at risk for data breaches, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the situation. Last year alone, more than a dozen dating apps were compromised by hackers, exposing sensitive information such as GPS data, phone numbers, and even sexual preferences and STD status.
And so far in 2021, a hacker exposed the data of 2.28 million MeetMindful users, posting information including their full names, birth dates and IP addresses on a hacker forum. Further, an API vulnerability was discovered in dating app Bumble that exposed sensitive data of almost 100 million users, including location, weight, and Facebook data. Security experts warned that this type of data could be used for phishing attacks on specific and unsuspecting users.
And most notably, reports have surfaced recently that Facebook decided not to notify over 533 million of its users across 106 countries of a damaging breach back in August of 2019 that might have exposed their personal data. The stolen data, including full names, numbers, and locations were posted to a hacking forum just this past month, which is how it was discovered.
Facebook said in a statement that it had resolved the vulnerability issue shortly after the breach and believes that hackers can’t use the same techniques to expose more data. Because the company couldn’t identify which individual users had their data compromised, they decided not to reach out individually according to NPR. However, the company continues to deal with privacy and security concerns, including coming under fire from the Federal Trade Commission for its practices.
Grindr and Jack’d, two other gay dating apps, have also encountered data breaches on their apps, with sensitive information like private photos and locations being stolen.
Security remains an important issue for app companies, and as more people flock to dating apps, they are a particularly enticing target for hackers.