Chtrbox clears air post data breach allegations

Chtrbox spokesperson shares that personal data has not been acquired through unethical methods.

In a recent turn of events, Twitter user Anurag Sen found a database of 49 million Instagram users on Amazon Web Services and alerted TechCrunch. An article by TechCrunch further alerts that, the database (49 million at the time of recording but was growing by the hour) contained sensitive information such as bio, profile picture, number of followers, and more scraped from the compromised Instagram accounts. In the case of verified accounts, the users’ email ID and phone number used for creating the Instagram account was also revealed.

On tracing back, the database seemed to belong to

Influencer Marketing tool, Chtrbox. According to the report, most of the

accounts breached belonged to leading influencers and celebrities across

genres. In addition to the account holder’s details, the data held the net worth

of these accounts (basis factors such as reach, followers, impressions, etc) indicating

how much the brands need to pay the particular influencer.

When Social Samosa reached out to Chtrbox an official spokesperson from the agency shared that the leak reports “inaccurate”.

“A particular database for limited influencers was inadvertently exposed for approximately 72 hours. This database did not include any sensitive personal data and only contained information available from the public domain, or self reported by influencers,” the spokesperson added.

Chtrbox further shares, “We would also like to

affirm that no personal data has been sourced through unethical means by

Chtrbox. Our database is for internal research use only, we have never sold

individual data or our database, and we have never purchased hacked-data

resulting from social media platform breaches. Our use of our database is

limited to help our team connect with the right influencers to support

influencers to monetize their online presence, and help brands create great

content.”