Popular Camgirls Sites Leak Information Of Millions Of Users And Sex Workers

Several well-known “Camgirl” sites have leaked the information of millions of sex workers and users after the firm behind these sites failed to protect their back-end database.

The company in question is VTS Media based in Barcelona. What it has in its portfolio is placercams.com, amateur.tv, and webcampornoxxx.net. Most of the victims are in Europe and Spain, but evidence shows that there are users from other countries as well.

As shown by the Alexa traffic rankings, amateur.tv ranks top in Spain in terms of popularity.

The database has been exposed without the protection of passwords for weeks, and it contains months-worth of the daily logs of these camgirls sites. What was leaked is when users logged in, their usernames, IP addresses, and user-agents, which can identify users in real life. Other information includes messages users get from other sites and their chat with other people. The login attempts, as well as passwords and usernames,  are also stored in plain texts. More importantly, hackers can get the information on what each user is watching and what they have rent, which can give evidence of their sexual tendency.

Overall, the leaked information can provide information on who is logging in, their locations, sometimes their emails, and other data that can expose their identities in the real world.

Users on these sites are not the only victims of the data breach. The sexual workers, or the camgirls who posed sexual content, also have their information stolen.

We were able to publish this finding because the database was closed last week.

The ones behind this finding are researchers of an Internet freedom and cybersecurity firm called Condition:Black.

As stated by Condition:Black’s founder John Wethington, this data breach was a severe failure in terms of compliance and technical perspective. The company has also reviewed these camgirls sites' terms of conditions and privacy policies, and it thought that mots users had no idea their data were monitored this details, which once exposed, can lead to hackers linking the accounts to their identities in real life.

He also urged users, in general, to think about the impact of their data, especially when the information can be life-altering, like what stored on these “camgirls” sites.

Data exposures are becoming more and more common in the past few years. The reason behind this is companies, for some reason, leave the vital systems unprotected for anyone with a certain level of technical knowledge to enter and harvest data.

Among several sites covering all sectors, dating websites are among those with the most sensitive data. This year, the database of 3Fun, a group dating site, was breached, exposing the information of over one million users. With access to the database, researchers were able to track the locations of the victims in real-time without their permission.

These breaches can do severe harm to users who want to keep their sexual encounters and tendency only to themselves. In 2016, several suicide and breaking up cases of individuals and families were believed to be the direct results of the hack of Ashley Madison site, which focused mainly on affairs.

VTS Media has not responded to any requests for comment, and currently, they are out of reach.

The company and its servers are both in Europe, so this case will fall under the GDPR rules’ special categories. The most severe consequence for VTS Media is that it can be fined 4% of its annual turnover for violating GDPR’s rules.