Nowhere near as juicy as this year's Ashley Madison hack where users got their personal information exposed or last year's leaked emails from the Sony hack a recent Hello Kitty leak is the most adorable sounding to date. Over three million users, possibly including Hello Kitty enthusiast Mariah Carey, who once had a bathroom dedicated to the furry feline but definitely including this Hello Kitty super fan, were exposed.
CSO’s Salted Hash reports researcher Chris Vickery found the the database for Sanrio's Hello Kitty online community (plus other Sanrio characters) sanriotown.com was exposed. It's reported the database which connects to other Hello Kitty sites such as hellokitty.com; hellokitty.com.sg; hellokitty.com.my; hellokitty.in.th; and mymelody.com; has 3.3 million accounts total. Vickery told Salted Hash financial information was not exposed like credit card numbers or users' other methods of payment but personal information. According to Vickery users personal information like full names and country of origin. Additionally users' email addresses, password hint questions and their answers were exposed.
Out of those accounts 186,261 belonged to users younger than 18 Sanrio wrote to Salted Hash in an email Tuesday. In a statement Sanrio said: "The alleged security breach of the SanrioTown site is currently under investigation. Information will be made available once confirmed." The information is believed to have been accessible as early as Nov. 20.
In another email Sanrio wrote, "possible (but not yet certain) that maintenance conducted on November 20th resulted in the database becoming accessible." Vickery told Salted Hash early Tuesday afternoon that the leak wasn’t the result of a hack.
