Instagram Data Breach Row: 49 Million Social Media Accounts Including Influencers' Information Leaked Online; Facebook Probing the Issue
Contact information of Instagram users, including influencers, brands and celebrities has been exposed online. Reports state that around 49 million social media accounts have been hacked.
New Delhi, May 21: Days after Aadhaar data leak row and Facebook data breach, another social networking website Instagram is struggling with the issues of exposing the personal data of millions of influencers online. Reports state that contact information of Instagram influencers, brands and celebrities has been exposed online.
According to a report, published in India Today news website, the leaked data include phone numbers and email IDs of the Instagram influencers. Along with this, vital information of users' profile pictures, bio, their total number of followers and even the location data (city and country) have also been breached and are available publically. Instagram Implementing Content Banning Policies on App To Curb Spread of Fake News: Report
A security researcher from Tech Crunch - Anurag Sen - revealed that the database that was hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) was left without a password. Along with this Sen also stated that due to this anyone can take a peek inside it and see the information pertaining to the Instagram influencers. This means that as many as 49 million records had been exposed online.
Upon digging further, it was found that database back to a Mumbai-based social media marketing firm, Chtrbox that pays Instagram influencers to run ad campaigns on their accounts.
With this, exposed data calculated the net worth of Instagram influencers based on their followers, reach of their post, engagement and the number of likes and shares they had. Following this information, social media marketing firm determine how much amount it had to pay to influencers for running an ad on their Instagram channels, says the report. PUBG Mobile Game Brings Baahubali Inspired 'The Great Indian Warrior' Outfit; Can Be Purchased With Discounts Till May 15.
Citing fears of facing flaks from social media users, the Chatrbox has pulled the database offline, but have not commented on the issue as of yet. Facebook, on the other hand, had stated that it is investigating the matter.
Earlier last month Facebook had accidentally stored passwords of millions of Instagram users in plain text, due to which information exposed to the people who had access to the company's internal systems was left for public use. Later its was confirmed that information had not been abused internally.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 21, 2019 06:51 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).