Octoly data leak exposes private information of 12,000 celebrities and influencers

Social media and data protection is a hot topic right now with the Facebook & Cambridge Analytica issue still fresh in our minds.

But this isn’t the only large-scale social media breach of late.

The private data of more than 12,000 prominent “social media influencers”, like celebrities, has reportedly been exposed by a marketing firm who pair stars with top brands for things like product endorsements and reviews.

The breached data is thought to have come from an Amazon server owned by brand-marketing firm Octoly, and it was said to be practically accessible to view by anyone without a password.

It’s obviously a massive blunder, and who knows who has been able to access the information already? For celebrities who have a heightened need for security and privacy, this is a serious breach. Such personal information for celebrities is often not in the public domain, so this information being breached could have a real impact on them.

How safe is social media?

So much personal and sensitive information is shared with social media companies and the companies that partner with them. With Facebook being all over the news recently after the Cambridge Analytica data protection issue, and with the continual breaches we hear about over and over again, we really are left wondering if our data will ever be safe.

One of the pertinent things about social media though is that we choose to share a lot of data with the companies based on the belief that it is private and secure. With the security of the varying apps we have on our phone under continual scrutiny, and with so much data out there on the world-wide-web, it’s a headache to even think about how safe is our data with social media these days.

If the private and personal information of celebrities with a need for heightened security can be so easily left on a publicly-accessible Amazon server, how can we be sure that any company we share our details with through social media – whether it’s the social media platforms themselves, or apps and various websites that link in with social media – is ever really safe?

I don’t think we can…

Given the prominence of some of the victims of the Octoly data protection breach, the marketing company may find themselves hit with sizeable lawsuits.

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