Over 50 million account details of Instagram influencers was exposed recently by a security researcher named Anurag Sen who claims that the numbers could go overboard and might include mostly those related to sports, media and prominent food blogging celebrities.
According to the update given by Mr. Sen, an online database which is interested in collecting such details has been a victim to a cyberattack last month and the details of the hack reached the ears of him on May 9th this year.
Sen is said to have started a personal probe on this issue and alerted the site owners about the security laxity which opened a world of details to hackers.
All the info seems to be scrapped from various social media platforms by a Mumbai, India based marketing company named Chtrbox.
It is basically a web development company which pays to social media influencers to promote content after which it keeps a tab of likes, followers and marketing analytics thereafter.
After receiving an alert from Mr. Sen, Chtrbox decided to pull down its online database on an immediate note.
The company has refused to comment on the issue or on the report published in TechCrunch.
But a source familiar with the ongoing developments said that the company mainly pays to influencers based in India, and so the data hack might not pose as a threat to Western country influencers.
Note- In 2017, an API flaw in Facebook-owned business subsidiary Instagram led to the leak of personal details of more than 6 million celebrity users and includes Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian. Later the stolen info was dumped onto the database and was reportedly sold for $10 per research.
