In 2014, The Guardian reported it was logging the location of users, including some who opted out of tracking. It's not the first time Whisper has been caught up in a privacy scandal. It is listed at #102 in the iOS App Store's social networking rankings. The application's description on the Google Play Store claims that it still has 30 million monthly users. It was not immediately clear if anyone other than experts from Twelve Security accessed the records. law enforcement, with researchers maintaining the incident could have put the privacy of users at risk. The database was reportedly locked down on Monday after being flagged to U.S.
Lauren Jamar, vice president of content and safety at MediaLab, told the Post the data was from "a consumer-facing feature of the application which users can choose to share or not share." The company reportedly told the paper the database was "not designed to be queried directly." It has been contacted for comment by Newsweek about the alleged cybersecurity incident. Whisper, released in 2012, is owned by a California-based holding company called MediaLab.
military missile facility, while another had the confession: "My son was conceived at a time when I cheated on his father." A search of the files for users who gave their age as 15 resulted in 1.3 million results, the Post reported. One exposed account was reportedly linked to a U.S. The vulnerable Whisper records included nicknames, ages, genders, hometowns and information about memberships of groups-many of which were sexual in nature.Īlongside "intimate messages," the paper reported posts could be tied to location data, and some were successfully traced to schools and workplaces.
Whisper, which is available on both iOS and Android, is based around the concept of users uploading posts and photos without having to reveal their real-world identity.īut researchers from Twelve Security, who found the files, warned the data left exposed could possibly do just that, leaving users open to the risk of being revealed. Read more Botnet Linked to Russian Criminals Infected 9 Million Computers