SurveyLama Breach: Data of 4.4 Million Users Exposed

On the 1st of February 2024, the popular survey platform, SurveyLama, suffered a data breach, compromising 4.4 million users’ information. The information implicated in the breach includes users’ email addresses, names, passwords, and more.

The creator of Have I Been Pwned, Troy Hunt, was informed of the breach by an affected user in early February. Hunt confirmed that the breach did indeed happen by investigating the authenticity of the data and confirming it with SurveyLama. SurveyLama also informed him that they had already "notified the users by email.” Subsequently, the breach was added to the HIBP site on 2 April 2024.

Owned by Globe Media, SurveyLama is one of the most popular survey platforms in the world, renowned for its attractive payouts. It attracts millions of users globally who are looking for a convenient way to make a side income.

User information on SurveyLama was stored as either salted SHA-1, bcrypt, or argon2 hashes. While this does add a degree of security and means that the information cannot be read directly, it’s by no means unassailable. In particular, the salted SHA-1 hash function has known vulnerabilities, especially in regards to collision attack tactics.

The leaked records consist of sensitive and potentially harmful user data, including:

• Dates of birth
• Email addresses
• IP addresses
• Names
• Passwords
• Phone numbers
• Physical addresses

Hackers or cybercriminals may be able to use this information to compromise users’ other accounts, initiate phishing scams, or commit other forms of fraud. Users that reuse the same password across different services are particularly at risk. Those affected are urged to immediately change their passwords on all relevant sites.

For now, it doesn’t seem as if the hackers have made this data available publicly. However, SurveyLama users need to monitor the news and take proactive measures to protect themselves online.

This incident is only the latest in a long line of massive data breaches this year. In March, AT&T had 70 million customer records leaked on the popular hacking forum, Bleached. In another case, hackers stole the data of 470,000 customers of the UK utility provider Southern Water.