• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

 | 

Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

 | 

Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

 | 

Unpatched flaw in EoL LG LNV5110R cameras lets hackers gain Admin access

 | 

Koske, a new AI-Generated Linux malware appears in the threat landscape

 | 

Mitel patches critical MiVoice MX-ONE Auth bypass flaw

 | 

Coyote malware is first-ever malware abusing Windows UI Automation

 | 

SonicWall fixed critical flaw in SMA 100 devices exploited in Overstep malware attacks

 | 

DSPM & AI Are Booming: $17.87B and $4.8T Markets by 2033

 | 

Stealth backdoor found in WordPress mu-Plugins folder

 | 

U.S. CISA adds CrushFTP, Google Chromium, and SysAid flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

U.S. CISA urges FCEB agencies to fix two Microsoft SharePoint flaws immediately and added them to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Sophos fixed two critical Sophos Firewall vulnerabilities

 | 

French Authorities confirm XSS.is admin arrested in Ukraine

 | 

Microsoft linked attacks on SharePoint flaws to China-nexus actors

 | 

Cisco confirms active exploitation of ISE and ISE-PIC flaws

 | 

SharePoint under fire: new ToolShell attacks target enterprises

 | 

CrushFTP zero-day actively exploited at least since July 18

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Digital ID
  • Researcher leaked a dataset of over 7,000,000 transactions scraped from the Venmo public API

Researcher leaked a dataset of over 7,000,000 transactions scraped from the Venmo public API

Pierluigi Paganini June 18, 2019

Researcher leaked online a dataset containing over 7,000,000 transactions scraped from the Venmo public API

Venmo is a digital wallet app owned by PayPal that lets you make and share payments with friends.

In August 2016, security expert Martin Vigo devised a method to abuse an optional SMS-based feature that allowed users to authorize payments by replying to an SMS message with a provided 6-digit code. An attacker with physical access to the victim’s iPhone could steal funds from his account.

The attack technique leverages the following iOS features that are enabled by default. :

  • The Siri virtual assistant that allows replying to text messages from a locked device;
  • The text message preview that allows displaying part of the message on the display of a locked device’s screen.

In the attack scenario devised by the expert, the attacker sends a ‘reply-to-pay’ message to his victim’s locked mobile phone, and then leverages Siri to authorize the transactions. The expert explained that an attacker could steal up to $2,999.99 per week from the victim. The development team at Venmo addressed the issue by removing the SMS reply-to-pay feature.

Last year, the researcher Hang Do Thi Duc, reported that she was able to access 207,984,218 Venmo transactions by visiting ​this public URL. 207,984,218public Venmo transactions

Public data includes names, dates, pictures and messages sent, Hang Do Thi Duc was able to track a profile for some of them, such as two users identified with the monikers ‘The Cannabis Retailer’ and the ‘The cord dealer.’ She described The Cannabis Retailer with the following statement:

“With access to the first name,” she wrote, “I could infer that this person was male. I was also able to determine that he operates out of Santa Barbara, California. You might wonder how: some of his customers have a Facebook URL as their profile picture which includes their Facebook ID and so it was easy for me to see where some of them, and therefore the protagonist of this story as well, live… He registered on January 24, 2017, a day before his first transaction, and had a total of ?943 transactions in 2017.”

Time is passed by Venmo continues to provide a public stream of the users’ transactions.

Last week, researcher Dan Salmon published details related to more than 7 million new transactions that were scraped from Venmo onto GitHub between July and September 2018, in October 12018, and in January and February 2019. He decided to publish the dataset to warn Venmo users of publicly availability of their data.

“This is a dataset of over 7,000,000 transactions scraped from the Venmo public API. Venmo is an app which allows users to easily send and receive money.” wrote Salmon.

“I am releasing this dataset, in order to bring attention to Venmo users that all of this data is publicly available for anyone to grab without even an API key. There is some very valuable data here for any attacker conducting OSINT research.”

Anyone could analyze this dataset and profile the users posing a serious threat to them.

Experts suggest Venmo users set ‘private’ mode for their transactions, in this way the platform will not share the transaction anywhere other than your own personal feed and, if it’s a payment to another user, the feed of the other person in the payment.

venmo privacy

To update your privacy settings on the web first log in to venmo.com. Then navigate to Settings → Privacy and select your preferred defaultprivacy setting. Finally, make sure to click Save Settings.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Venmo, privacy)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

hacking news information security news Pierluigi Paganini privacy Security Affairs Security News venmo

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 27, 2025
SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 27, 2025
Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

    Malware / July 27, 2025

    Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

    Breaking News / July 27, 2025

    Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

    Cyber Crime / July 26, 2025

    Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

    Intelligence / July 26, 2025

    Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

    Intelligence / July 25, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT