According to the service Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), SurveyLama suffered a data breach in February, which affected the sensitive data of 4.4 million users.
SurveyLama, owned by the French company Globe Media, is an online platform that pays registered users for completing surveys.
In early February, HIBP creator Troy Huntlearned of the SurveyLama data breach. The data exposed includes:
- Dates of birth
- Email addresses
- IP addresses
- Full names
- Passwords
- Telephone numbers
- Physical addresses
Hunt was reportedly notified of the data breach by one of the affected users . He then verified the exposed data. When HIBP contacted SurveyLama, the platform said it had already notified affected users via email, essentially confirming the security incident.
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The data breach affects 4,426,879 SurveyLama accounts and was added to HIBP, so affected users should have already received an email notification.
The platform said the exposed were passwords stored in salted SHA-1, bcrypt, or argon2 format. While hashing adds some protection, there is always the risk of brute-forcing, especially for passwords protected with salted SHA-1.
Therefore, SurveyLama account holders should immediately reset their passwords to both the service and other accounts, if they use the same passwords.
At this time, there is no evidence that the stolen data has been leaked online. However, the same hackers behind the SurveyLama data breach could use the data for fraud. In the coming period, users should be extra careful with emails, messages or calls they may receive and monitor their accounts for suspicious activity.
See also: PandaBuy: Data breach affects 1.3 million customers
How will a future data breach be prevented?
SurveyLama needs to take steps to prevent future data breaches. First, it needs to practices security informationby implementing stricter encryption standards to protect user data.
In addition, it must invest in more advanced intrusion detection systems that can identify and address any threat to the company's data, in real time.
An access control policy, which limits access to data to authorized personnel only, can also help. This ensures that only people with the appropriate authorization and training have access to sensitive data.
See also: Harvard Pilgrim: Data breach affected 2,860,795 people
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Finally, SurveyLama can enhance its users' awareness of data securityby providing training and information on best practices for protecting personal data from breach.
Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com
