Popular fitness tracking app suffers unauthorized access that exposed 150 million users

Synopsis

One of the largest cyberattacks on record. According to USA Today, it is the 4th-biggest reported data breach of all time, after two separate Yahoo! hacks in 2016 and the May 2016 MySpace hack. Narrowly beating Equifax from September 2017 and eBay from May 2014 both of which affected around 145 million users.

In March 2018, the company confirmed that data from its MyFitnessPal app was accessed by an "unauthorized party" and that more than 150 million people's information was likely compromised. Payment information was not leaked, but information pertaining to weight loss and other fitness related data was.

Presented by the mainstream media "In case you missed it, one of the largest data breaches in history was just announced" this was in part because this announcement arrived the same week as Facebook's scandal involving Cambridge Analytica which dominated the news' cyber attack attention bandwidth.

After making the disclosure, shares of the company dropped 3.8%.

Analyst

Courtenay Brammar

Experienced global enterprise risk and governance professional. Previously Vice President at Morgan Stanley, Deloitte Risk Advisory practitioner and PRMIA steering committee member in both London and New York.

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