Computer pirates have violated the ASD application, which recently went viral as a place for women to talk safely about men, and tens of thousands of selfies and photos of photos have now apparently leaked online.
A spokesman confirmed the trick on Friday afternoon. The company estimates that 72,000 images are accessed, including 13,000 verification photos and images of the Government ID.
TEA is designed to function as a virtual whisper network for women, which allows them to upload photos of men and look for them by name. Users can leave comments that describe specific men as a “red flag” or “green flag”, and share other information about them.
Recently there has been so much popularity that it became the best free application in the Apple App Store this week. The application said Thursday that it recently won almost a million new records.
Registering in tea requires users to take selfies, which the application says they are eliminated after the review, to demonstrate that they are women. All users who are accepted are promised anonymity outside the user names they choose. Take screenshots of what is in the application is also blocked.
The hacker agreed to a database for more than two years, said the tea spokesman, added that “these data were originally stored in accordance with the application requirements of the law related to cybercuting prevention.”
The TEA spokesman said that the company has hired cybersecurity experts of third parties and is “working 24 hours to ensure our systems.”
“Protecting the privacy and data of our users is our highest priority. Tea is taking all the necessary step to guarantee the security of our platform and avoid greater exposure,” said the spokesman.
The application has angry some men and caused a thread on Thursday night on the 4Chan right troll messages, in which users asked for a “pirate and filtration” campaign. The company realized the incident on early Friday, said the spokesman.
A 4Chan user published a link on Friday morning, allegedly allowing people to download the stolen image database, and bumps of alleged victims identification photos have been published in 4Chan and X.
NBC News has not verified the authenticity of the photos or their origin.
