Last July 14th, 2020, Wattpad has preconized the “unauthorized accessed” of some user data in their servers.
The Toronto based social networking service has warned its users that some personally identifiable information may be have been accessing such as email addresses, date of birth and gender, profile display name, account name, and cryptographically hashed passwords.
They, however, confirmed that, based on their investigation to date, that there is no financial information, stories, private messages, or phone numbers that were accessed in this unprecedented incident.
The leak, which contains a full database of around 120 GB, was discovered by a private security firm in one of the hacking forums being offered for free.
The allegedly stolen Wattpad database was first seen being sold for $100,000, which reportedly contains 270 million data.
The private security firm assumes that the Wattpad breach was carried out in June 2020.
This well-loved social storytelling platform was founded in 2006 and reported to have a total of 80 million users back in 2019. This writing and reading platform has been used by both amateur and established writers and since created a social community for storytelling junkies.
The company did not disclose if how many percentages of their total users were affected in this incident.
Wattpad has released an update on July 20th that they are resetting the passwords on the accounts and advises their users to change their password immediately in a third-party website if in case the affected users used the same password in their Wattpad account.
The obtained information may be used by Cybercriminals to orchestrate a Social Engineering cyber fraud pursuit.
Below are some of our recommendation to prevent getting hacked:
- Utilize Multi-factor Authentication and unique, strong passwords on different social platforms.
- Make sure to monitor your financial information for any suspicious activities.
- Install a powerful Antivirus program in your PC, Laptop, and Mobile device.
iZOOlogic is also on the tail of these database leaks. We downloaded a copy of the said breach as part of our commitment to secure our client’s data and information that may be spread in the dark web community. Our Data Loss Recovery services are on surveillance of such threats and emerging threats.
