February might be the season of love, but recent reports of hacking incidents may have you thinking twice before opening your favorite dating app. OkCupid is the subject of not one but two such stories - first a report revealing the dating site has denied a data breach despite multiple users’ claims of their accounts being hacked and stolen, and now the discovery of a security flaw from Israel-based cybersecurity firm Checkmarx.

According to researchers at Checkmarx, a vulnerability in the Android version of OkCupid’s mobile app could have exposed users to attacks of varying severity from cybercriminals. Bad actors could exploit the flaw to monitor usage of the app, read messages, track a user’s geographic location, send links with self-replicating malware or impersonate the victim.

“The disruptive potential of this attack is frightening as it is not hard to implement, it is not easy to detect by a typical user, and has high ​confidentiality​, high integrity​ and high ​availability​ impact,” said researchers in a post explaining the potential impact of the flaw.

Users of the popular dating app Coffee Meets Bagel woke up to a surprise on Valentine’s Day. Instead of looking at matches, they were greeted with a notice from the company saying some of their personal data had been hacked.

According to a report from CNN, the data breach occurred a few days before on February 11, but CMB executives were trying to assess the situation and the extent of the damage. In their notice, the company stated that an “unauthorized party gained access to a partial list of user details.”

Their email goes on to say: “The affected information only includes your name and email address prior to May 2018. As a reminder, we never store any financial information or passwords.”

Bumble Spotlight

So you want to be the center of attention? Bumble has announced a new feature called Spotlight that will do just that. When activated, Spotlight will bump your profile to the front of the line for 30 minutes, allowing you to be seen by more Bumble users than you would during a regular swiping session.

Spotlight will be available to all users who are willing to cough up two Bumble Coins (acquired through a separate in-app purchase) for the perk. One coin currently goes for $0.99 in the US or £1.99 in the UK. If you prefer to keep your promotional activities under wraps, have no fear that your Spotlight secret will be exposed. Your profile will not look any different to those browsing. On your own screen, stars will appear across the top of the app to indicate Spotlight has been enabled.

If you think the Spotlight feature sounds familiar, you are far from alone. It bears an obvious resemblance to Tinder’s Boost, which also promotes your profile in your area for 30 minutes. An icon appears next to new matches made during a Boost period, but other users see no indication you used the feature. Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold subscribers get one free Boost per month. Other users may purchase Boosts at any time.

How in love are couples in America? What exactly makes a relationship thrive? For the second year running, eHarmony has released The Happiness Index: Love and Relationships in America to answer these questions and others. The national survey took place online between December 13, 2018 and January 3, 2019, with 2,327 interviews conducted by Harris Interactive.

eHarmony wastes no time announcing the good news: 83 percent of Americans are happy in their romantic relationships. Those who are blissfully paired up say the secret to their success is having a monogamous relationship with open communication, a healthy sex life, and an equal partnership between both halves. Only one in nine people say they are unhappy with their partner or spouse. These troubled couples are often together for companionship rather than love, have infrequent sex, and feel a sense of inequality in their relationship.

This year, a strong correlation between romantic happiness and an interest in social justice issues emerged. Couples who reported shared awareness of important cultural movements, such as #MeToo, also reported increased relationship happiness. Additional links emerged between relationship happiness and openness about mental health, honest political discourse, and voting in the 2018 midterm elections.

Is OkCupid the latest dating platform to fall victim to hackers? That depends on who you ask.

A news story from TechCrunch reports that an OkCupid user reached out to the tech news site after a hacker broke into his OkCupid account, reset his password and changed the email address on file. OkCupid instantly accepted the address change, he said, without sending an email asking for confirmation that the change was correct. When he contacted OkCupid’s customer service about the issue, he was told the company was “not able to provide any details about accounts not connected to your email address.”

The user is now locked out of his account with no way to reset his password and regain access. Making matters worse, the hacker began harassing him with “strange text messages” from his phone number that was taken from one of his private messages.

The “coolest” new dating trend? If Samsung has a say, your smart fridge will soon be your go-to matchmaker. The electronics giant has recently announced its most surprising venture yet, a dating platform they’ve punnily dubbed Refrigerdating.

Refrigerdating promises to help singles find love based on the contents of their fridge. “In a world of social media, polished pictures and perfect surfaces, it can be hard to find out who truly is The One,” says Samsung. “But there is one space in our homes to which the polish hasn’t reached.“ That space is the inside of your refrigerator, which, if Samsung is to be believed, can say a surprising amount about who you are and what you’re into.

"We hope people can meet under more honest or transparent circumstances with the help of the contents of the fridge, because that can tell you a lot about the personality," said Elin Axelsson, PR manager at Samsung Electronics Nordic.