FILE PHOTO: People wearing balaclavas are silhouetted as they pose with a laptops in front of a screen projected with the word 'cyber crime' and binary code, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo
(Reuters) -Tea, an app that lets women anonymously comment and review dates with men, said it has suffered a data breach, with hackers gaining access to 72,000 user images.
A Tea spokesperson confirmed the hack to Reuters on Saturday, saying they had detected "unauthorized access to our systems" and about 72,000 images had been exposed, including 13,000 selfies and photo identifications submitted for account verification purposes, as well as 59,000 images from posts, comments, and direct messages.
"We have engaged third-party cybersecurity experts and are working around the clock to secure our systems," the company said in a statement, adding that no emails or phone numbers were exposed, and that only users who signed up before February 2024 were affected.
The breach was first reported by 404 Media early on Friday.
The app, which says its motto is "women should never have to compromise their safety while dating," is a platform where women who sign up and are approved after a verification process can anonymously share information about men they are interested in in Yelp-style reviews.
It has gained increasing popularity, saying on Instagram that more than two million users in the past few days had asked to join the app.
Signing up for Tea requires users to take selfies, which the app says are deleted after review.
(Reporting by Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; editing by Diane Craft)
