Adult live-streaming site exposes millions of user records

Half a million CAM4.com records were traced back to China, where porn is illegal, but the company says it has secured its servers

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Safety Detectives says several hundred entries that were left unprotected revealed full names, credit card types and payment amount. (Picture: Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

Published: 5:01pm, 6 May 2020Updated: 5:01pm, 6 May 2020

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Millions of pieces of user data from an adult live-streaming service were left open to the public, according to a new report from cybersecurity review site Safety Detectives.

The records from CAM4.com, a site that offers explicit webcam performances, include names, emails, sexual orientation and chat transcripts. The leak was plugged after researchers notified the site, and there’s no evidence that criminals got hold of any of the data. Still, the hole could have left users exposed to various risks such as identity theft and blackmail, researchers warned.

While most of the data belongs to American, Brailizan and Italian users, more than half a million records were traced back to users in China. The country officially bans online pornography, though some have inadvertantly slipped through the cracks of the Great Firewall. During the height of the coronavirus lockdown, porn-related web searches soared in China.

CAM4.com did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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