How Safe is your Personal Data Online?

Every day we wake up to an incident of data breach, be it massive or small. The alarming rise in the number of data breaches puts forth innumerable questions on the security of our data.

Under Armour, a fitness apparel company, has made a shocking revelation that one of their renowned fitness apps, MyFitnessPal, has been hacked. Personal details of about 150 million users of the app were hacked, making it the largest data breach of 2018 so far.

According to an official statement, “The investigation indicates that the affected information included usernames, email addresses, and hashed passwords — the majority with the hashing function called bcrypt used to secure passwords.” The fact that social security numbers, driver licence numbers and payment card data remain unaffected, comes as a huge relief.

Under Armour has notified MyFitnessPal users about the breach via e-mails and messages and has requested them to change their passwords.

MyFitnessPal tracks the diet and exercise of their users to determine optimal caloric intake and nutrients. The app claims to have the largest database of athlete behaviour, that includes statistics on workouts, nutrition, and sleep patterns.

Separating man from technology has become impossible; our personal information is available on diverse platforms, from social networking sites to mobile apps. Hence, providing multiple layers of security to a user’s data comes as a huge responsibility and even a minor incident of data breach can question the credibility of an organization.