MuslimMatch.com Another Hacking Victim
Dating Site Breach Affects Over 150,000 Users

"Single, Divorced, Widowed, Married Muslims: Coming together to share ideas, thoughts and find a suitable marriage partner," is what Muslim Match’s Facebook page advertises. The site was started in 2000 and has since been helping Muslim singles find a partner for marriage. After the hack, a significant number of user accounts were accounted for in the data breach.

Security researcher Troy Hunt stated that the information gathered included information such as marital status, whether the user was a convert, their employment and whether or not they would consider polygamy. Another interesting point was that some user accounts had been marked as "potential users".

Dating Site Data Hack: Messages Read

One of the dating site’s biggest data hack casualties was the messages sent between users, but what was interesting was that a lot of the messages appeared to be spam. Indeed, it seemed that there was a considerable increase in the number of fake users on Muslim Match, as the site had already warned its users about.

Current users Zaheer says that he is disappointed because, "...the site didn't seem to be secure in the first place. They never used HTTPS." HTTPS is used by websites for encrypting and securing data for users who have to login to accounts.

While there have been many dating site data hacks and breaches in the past, quite of a few of them could have been avoided. In the case of Muslim Match, it is clear to see that not using proper encryption leaves a website open to all kinds of breaches. This is something singles should therefore keep an eye out for when signing up for online dating!