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Tea App and Its Copycat Exposed by Security Flaws as Federal Lawsuit Proceeds

The women-only platform disabled its messaging feature to protect users after a July breach that led to consolidated federal litigation, prompting an FBI-backed investigation

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Overview

  • Tea paused its in-app messaging earlier this month as it enlisted the FBI and third-party security firms to probe a July hack that exposed 72,000 verification images and over 1.1 million private messages.
  • The company is providing free identity protection services to affected users and faces a consolidated federal class-action lawsuit overseen by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse.
  • Despite legal and technical challenges, Tea remains among the top-ranked apps in its category, with millions of users relying on its crowd-sourced safety tools.
  • TeaOnHer, a newly launched men’s counterpart, climbed the App Store charts before security researchers discovered vulnerabilities exposing users’ government IDs, selfies and plaintext admin credentials.
  • The twin breaches underscore growing concerns over the privacy risks of identity-verification platforms amid new online safety laws in the U.S. and U.K.