Data leak from popular website. Nearly 200k records

CERT Polska team reported about data leak from popular modeling site – megamodels.pl. One of the problems is that scammers can easily get hold of users’ passwords.

CERT Polska team published a message regarding a data leak from the megamodels.pl portal. As we read in the entry, the leak affected 182,000 records. It included a lot of valuable data from the cybercriminal point of view, so users should take CERT Polska’s message seriously.

CERT Polska estimates the number of real stories, and therefore the number of infected people, at around 40,000. The leak included all publicly visible data on user profiles, as well as name, email address, phone number, date of birth and password hashes.

Due to the way password hashes are created, criminals can easily figure out the real password. For this reason, all users of the site should make sure to change their password not only on the megamodels.pl site, but also in all other places where the password has been used.

CERT Polska informs you where you can check if your data has been leaked as a result of cybercriminal activities. You can check this on the website bezpiecznedane.gov.pl.

Creating a strong password is the foundation of online security. It’s important that your password is long and contains a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Your password shouldn’t be easy to guess, so avoid obvious combinations like “123456” or “password” and avoid using the same passwords in different places.

It’s also a good idea to change your passwords regularly, even if you don’t suspect a security breach. Each online account should have a unique password, which reduces the risk if one of your accounts is hacked. An example of a strong password is “P@ssw0rd#2zX!”. If it’s hard to come up with such a combination, you can use password managers.

Additionally, it is a good idea to enable two-factor authentication (2FA) wherever possible. This is an extra layer of protection that effectively protects against third parties, even if they know your login and password information. This type of authentication most often involves entering a code received via SMS or generated by an app. This type of security greatly increases the difficulty for cybercriminals to gain control of your account.