Dating website BeautifulPeople.com might think it is a cut above the rest – as the name suggests, only attractive people are allowed – but things have turned decidedly grotesque for its users after details of 1.1 million of them have been leaked online.
The data, which includes users’ names, addresses, sexual preference and incomes, was obtained in a hack in December 2015 but has only just come to light.
The contents of 15 million private messages were also revealed, but the firm insisted that no passwords or financial information were included.
Australian security researcher Troy Hunt detected the leak when his website HaveIBeenPwnded discovered that user information from BeautifulPeople.com was available to purchase online.
The hack attack was quickly downplayed by the site. BeautifulPeople.com told its users that a test server was the target of the attack, although Vickery said the data itself was still genuine.
“Whether or not it’s in the test database makes no difference if it’s real data,” he added. It also transpired that a second researcher had identified the same weakness on the same day.
“The breach involves data that was provided by members prior to mid-July 2015. No more recent user data or any data relating to users who joined from mid-July 2015 onward is affected,” Beautiful People said in a statement. “As far as we were aware, at that time [in December 2015], only the two security researchers who informed us of the breach had access to this data.”
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