Data leaked of 235 million users from Instagram, TikTok & YouTube in Dark Web: Reports

Netizens are often worried about ir security because re have been any incidents ted in which hackers have preyed on many individuals and many companies. After a major Twitter hacking incident, again an eyebrow-raising incident has occurred where hackers have dumped data of more than 235 Million users from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube in Dark Web. Re details below.

How did data of 235 Million users end up in Dark Web?

As per reports by Deccan Herald, a popular company social media analytics company, Social Data was responsible for exposing legally influential social media users' data to marketing companies. analytics company reportedly exposed data of millions of users from prominent social media companies like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. This happened because organisation failed to provide any auntication process to access database or set-up a password to shield database. Some hackers got a hold on this data and y have w uploed it on Dark Web.

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What information did stolen data from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube contain?

data stolen from Social Data analytics company contained personal information. list includes officially registered name, account description, username, wher profile belongs to a business or has vertisements, statistics about follower engment, including a number of followers, engment rate, follower growth rate, audience , audience , audience location, likes, last post timestamp, and . It also includes some samples including email and phone numbers as well.

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How many users are exposed to stolen data?

Comparitech cybersecurity team reportedly identified this incident immediately. As per Comparitech blog, user-profiles related to social media giants like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube  close to 235 million have been found in some undisclosed websites hosted at three separate IPv6 dresses.

However, exposed data h links to origin which belonged to Deep Social. Deep Social's Application Programming Interface (API) was banned and sued by Facebook and Instagram in 2018 for fraudulently scraping user profiles. 

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Number of user data stolen as per social media handle

• Instagram users - 192,392,954 exposed
• TikTok users - 42,129,799 exposed
• YouTube users - 3,955,892 exposed

Social Data is a legal analytics company that sells data of social media celebrities, connecting m with brands. However, if personal information gets in hands of hackers, it can be targetted to steal money from bank accounts or to make prank calls and even serious phishing scams.

To prevent such a breach from occurring, Comparitech cybersecurity team reached out to Deep Social to plug ir security loophole and n provided Social Data with information. Chief Techlogy Officer of Social Data ackwledged issue and closed access door to database.

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