Everything To Know About The Tea App Hacking

The digital evolution of the dating scene has become increasingly significant for many Millennials and Gen Z individuals. The Tea app has emerged as the latest hot topic, originally serving as a platform for women to warn each other about men they’ve dated. However, it has recently been subjected to a security breach, leaving several users concerned about the safety of their personal information.

“We identified unauthorized access to our systems and immediately launched a full investigation with assistance from external cybersecurity experts to understand the scope and impact of the incident,” San Francisco-based Tea Dating Advice Inc. said in a statement.

According to 404 Media, Users from 4chan claim to have discovered an exposed database hosted on Google’s mobile app development platform, Firebase, belonging to the newly popular women’s dating safety app Tea. Users say they are rifling through people’s personal data and selfies uploaded to the app and then posting that data online. In a statement to 404 Media, Tea confirmed the breach also impacted some direct messages but said that the data is from two years ago.

“A legacy data storage system was compromised, resulting in unauthorized access to a dataset from prior to February 2024,” the statement said. “This dataset includes approximately 72,000 images, including approximately 13,000 selfies and photo identification submitted by users during account verification and approximately 59,000 images publicly viewable in the app from posts, comments and direct messages.”

The Tea App states that they have tapped third-party cybersecurity experts and are working around the clock to secure and implement additional security measures, fixing the data issue. However, here’s everything to know about the lingering questions surrounding the Tea App.

What is the Tea App?

Founder Sean Cook, a software engineer with previous experience at Salesforce and Shutterfly, created the app in 2022 after observing his mother’s “terrifying” experiences. These experiences included unknowingly dating men with criminal records and being “catfished,” or deceived by men using false identities.

What Did the Data Breach Expose?

According to the Tea App, Preliminary findings indicate that the incident involved a legacy data storage system containing information from before February 2024. Approximately 72,000 images – including approximately 13,000 images of selfies or selfies featuring a photo identification submitted during account verification and 59,000 images publicly viewable in the app from posts, comments and direct messages – were accessed without authorization.

What Happens Now?

Although you don’t have to delete your account, if you would like to delete it, those service functions will remain available through the application. You can remove your application by emailing @teaforwomen.com with the subject “Remove my Account” and include the following information: city/state, date of birth and any information you remember about your username.