One of the most popular event planning apps, Peatix, has fallen victim to an attack, with a hacker leaking the data of more than 4.2 million users registered on platform .
The website's user data was made available through advertisements posted via Instagram, on Telegram channels, and on various hacking forums.
As ZDNet discovered, the leaked information included full names, usernames, emails , and hashed passwords.
Most of the data belonged to people with Asian names, consistent with the headquarters of Peatix, which first launched in Japan in 2011 and later expanded to Singapore in 2013, before also moving to the US and other parts of the world.
ZDNet notified Peatix of the potential breach earlier this month, but the company made no statement. However, Peatix admitted to the breach this week in a message posted on its website.
The company said it has investigated the reports, identified the entry point and prevented the attackers from re-entering its systems.
Peatix assured users that no financial data was involved in the incident, as all payments were processed through third-party platforms and nothing was stored in its database.
“Furthermore, based on our investigation to date, we have no reason to believe that there was any data involving users, any data obtained through the questionnaire operation, or users’ addresses or phone numbers,” the company said.
ZDNet also reached out to the hacker who shared Peatix data online, on one of the many hacking forums. He said he was not one of the people who breached the company, but simply leaked the data. Peatix is currently notifying all affected users via email and asking them to change their account passwords.
