According to security firm Risk Based Security , social media marketing company Preen.Me was hacked, allowing the attacker to gain access to the personal data of approximately 100,000 influencers and 250,000 social media users. The attacker then posted the stolen data on hacking forums . This means that any cybercriminal can access it and use it to carry out attacks and scams.
The breach and data leak was discovered by the Risk Based Security research team on June 6, when a hacker revealed that he had breached Preen.Me.’s systems and exposed the data of 100,000 influencers on a well-known forum. The hacker uploaded a portion of the data via PasteBinand two days later on June 8, he said he would expose the rest, although that has not happened yet.
The stolen information includes influencers' social media links, email, names, phone numbers and home addresses. The influencers affected by the dataare involved in cosmetics and lifestyle topics.
Roy Bass, senior dark web analyst at Risk Based Security, commented: “Passwords have not been leaked, but criminals can look for compromised passwords from other exposed databases and link them to influencer and user, via emails, other personal information or brute force techniques.”
The analyst also said that victims are vulnerable to spam attacks and scams due to their exposed contact details. They can also fall victim phishing attacks.
Then, on June 14, the same cybercriminal leaked the details of another 250,000 social media users using Preen.Me's app , ByteSizedBeauty . The exposed files include social media links, as well as personal information such as home and email addresses, date of birth, eye color, and skin tone.
Bass added: “As for other social media users, they are vulnerable to the threats mentioned earlier, most notably spear-phishing attacks and identity theft due to the leakage of more personal information.”
