Tea Dating Advice, an app that allows women to anonymously rate men and share information about their «suspicious» behavior, has been hacked. Hackers posted a large number of files containing the personal data of the service’s users on the 4chan forum.
Tea Dating Advice, an app that allows women to anonymously rate men and share information about their «suspicious» behavior, has been hacked. Hackers posted a large number of files containing the personal data of the service’s users on the 4chan forum.
According to the BBC, citing 404 Media, Tea Dating Advice claimed to have «unauthorized access» to 72,000 images. Some of them contained photos of women holding up their ID cards, although according to Tea’s privacy policy, such images are «immediately deleted» after authentication.
Tea Dating Advice positions itself as a safe way for women to anonymously vet men they might meet on Tinder or Bumble to make sure they are who they say they are. Although the app was released back in 2023, it has gained popularity in recent weeks, rising to the top spot in the US Apple App Store.
Tea was created by Sean Cook, who previously worked at Salesforce and Shutterfly. He launched Tea «after witnessing his mother’s horrific experience with online dating—not only was she a victim of fraud, but she was also unknowingly dating men who had criminal records».
According to the app’s developers, the data leak affected users who registered before February 2024. Tea said it «acted quickly» and «collaborated with some of the most trusted cybersecurity experts».
The company said the photos that fell into the hands of the hackers «cannot be linked in any way to posts on Tea.» However, the developers later admitted that the hackers had gained access to another 59,000 images from the app, containing posts, comments, and direct messages from two years ago.
X (Twitter) users criticized the security measures taken by Tea developers.
«Tea keeps every [user]'s photo and ID unencrypted in public. Did they vibecode it?», — wrote one commenter.
