data breaches
Inside the Tea App Hack: How Weak API Security Exposed Thousands of Users
Hackers Exploited Cloud Misconfiguration and API Weaknesses to Breach the Viral Red-Flag Dating App Used by Thousands of Women
July 28, 2025 | MAG212NEWS
In a dramatic reminder of how fragile even the most well-intentioned digital tools can be, Tea, the viral dating-safety app empowering women to share warnings about men, has suffered a catastrophic breach.
Hackers gained unauthorized access to over 72,000 images and private communications through a combination of cloud storage misconfiguration and API exploitation, according to two cybersecurity researchers who analyzed leaked data samples shared on dark web forums.
“This wasn’t the work of sophisticated nation-state actors — it was an avoidable failure in basic cloud security hygiene,” said Noah Kandel, an independent white-hat hacker and digital forensics expert.
🔍 How the Hack Happened: A Technical Breakdown
1. Exposed Amazon S3 Bucket
The Tea app reportedly stored user-uploaded media (including profile selfies, ID scans, and screenshots) on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 bucket, a common cloud storage method used by mobile applications.
🔐 The flaw: The bucket was misconfigured to allow unauthenticated public access via direct URL traversal, meaning that anyone who guessed or scraped the file path could download images without logging in.
Tools like AWSBucketDump or S3Scanner could have easily been used by attackers to enumerate files en masse.
2. Leaky Mobile API (Improper Authentication Controls)
Security researchers believe hackers also exploited poorly secured API endpoints exposed by the Tea app’s backend, particularly those used for retrieving messages and images.
🧪 The flaw: APIs were missing proper token-based access control (RBAC), and in some cases, responded to requests without verifying the identity or permission level of the requester.
This allowed attackers to programmatically scrape user data, including:
- Comments and posts (via
GET /api/posts) - Private messages (
GET /api/dm/{user_id}) - Media files with predictable URLs
Some endpoints reportedly returned full JSON responses that included user metadata, filenames, and links to stored media.
3. Credential Stuffing & Brute Force Attacks
The app did not implement rate-limiting or 2FA, and its login system was vulnerable to credential stuffing attacks — a tactic where attackers use leaked passwords from other breaches to gain access to user accounts.
🧨 Once inside, they accessed private conversations, report submissions, and in some cases, admin tools that provided backdoor entry to the moderation dashboard.
💥 The Fallout: What Was Stolen
- 72,000+ images and videos
- Government ID photos (used for profile verification)
- Screenshots from private messages
- JSON data revealing usernames, timestamps, and geolocation metadata
- Private complaint logs about named individuals
Tea’s developers have since taken down the vulnerable endpoints and placed the app in “read-only mode” while external firms assess the full scope.
⚠️ Why It Matters: The Human Impact of a Technical Failure
For thousands of women, Tea was more than a dating app — it was a digital shield. Now, that shield has cracked open.
“I felt safer knowing other women had my back,” said Nadia, a 26-year-old user from Austin, TX. “Now I just feel exposed.”
Security experts emphasize that while the intent behind Tea was socially beneficial, its execution lacked security-by-design, a principle where privacy and protection are built into the architecture of platforms from the start.
🛠️ What Developers and Users Can Learn
For App Developers:
- Always enable private ACLs (access control lists) for AWS S3 buckets.
- Implement OAuth2.0 with token expiration for mobile APIs.
- Apply rate-limiting, brute-force protection, and MFA to login endpoints.
- Perform regular penetration testing and bug bounty programs to uncover flaws before attackers do.
For Users:
- Be cautious with apps that request photo IDs or sensitive data.
- Avoid reusing passwords across apps — especially those tied to personal safety.
- Consider using temporary or masked email addresses when signing up for apps with controversial or high-risk purposes.