The personal details of 235 million TikTok, Instagram and YouTube accounts have been leaked online due to a database breach.
The data was collected by Social Data, a company that sells data on influencers to marketers, according to Comparitech.
Worryingly, this data includes names, contact info, personal info, images and statistics about followers.
Comparitech explained: “The profiles were taken from publicly viewable social media pages on Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram.
“Security researcher Bob Diachenko, who leads Comparitech’s cybersecurity research team, uncovered three identical copies of the exposed data on August 1.”
While the data was collected via web-scraping and was not hacked, the practice is against Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube’s policies.
Speaking to Comparitech, a spokesperson for Social Data said: “Please, note that the negative connotation that the data has been hacked implies that the information was obtained surreptitiously.
“This is simply not true, all of the data is available freely to ANYONE with Internet access. I would appreciate it if you could ensure that this is made clear.
“Anyone could phish or contact any person that indicates telephone and email on his social network profile description in the same way even without the existence of the database. […] Social networks themselves expose the data to outsiders – that is their business – open public networks and profiles. Those users who do not wish to provide information, make their accounts private.”
Thankfully the database has now been shut down, although it remains unclear if it was accessed by anyone while it was open.
Comparitech added: “Users of Instagram and TikTok should be on the lookout for scams and phishing messages either sent directly or posted in comments.
“Even though the information is publicly available, the size and scope of an aggregated database makes it more vulnerable to mass attack than it would be in isolation.”
A spokesperson for TikTok said: "TikTok places the highest priority on user privacy, and we have anti-scraping policies in place. Our Terms of Service prohibit third parties from running automated scripts to collect information from our platform, including public profile information. If we identify any such practices, we will take rapid action, including seeking legal redress."
