Hollywood Site Leaks Personal Data Of 260,000 Actors

A  popular US online casting agency MyCastingFile.com has leaked a significant volume of private data belonging to more than 260,000 users. This website is used to cast US talent in movies and television shows. The company behind the site claims to have recruited talent for productions such as NCIS: New Orleans, True Detective, Pitch Perfect and the last instalment of the Terminator series, Terminator Genisys.

The records from over 260,000 users including personally identifiable information (PII) such as both physical and email addresses, phone numbers and sensitive information about distinguishing physical features.

In total, close to 10 million records were leaked, adding up to around 1GB in size.If referring to server records, it would appear the breach first originated on 31 May 2020 but has since been fixed by the company, following our disclosure. The site allows users to create what it calls “talent profiles” whereby users complete a detailed questionnaire including sensitive personal information including weight, height and ethnicity details.

The site also allows children under the age of 18 to use its services, thereby raising the level of cybersecurity required for child protection.

In its privacy policy, the website operator states that its services are reserved for adults only and that all under-18 accounts must be managed by parents, but does confirm that children’s private information is stored on the company’s server alongside adult profiles. The leak contained several pieces of information that could be weaponized by hackers to commit identity theft and fraud, across various establishments and organisations both private and public.

• Leaked email addresses could be targeted by sending alternative personal information obtained from MyCastingFile and falsely presented to look like a legitimate response. The combined collection of data creates an engaging approach for hackers and can lead to click-throughs to unsecured websites, malware downloads and virus intrusions.

• Photographs provided by users can be harnessed to conduct scams involving facial recognition such as identity fraud, as well as being used to create multiple illegitimate profiles, to carry out what’s known as “catfishing”, the act of luring someone into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.

User photographs could be potentially compromising, therefore, creating severe anxiety and/or reputational damage for those affected by the breach. Moreover, availability of sensitive private information such as photographs, videos or even medical information, can all be leveraged by nefarious users to extort and blackmail their targets.

The fact that this breach occurred at a casting agency raises various industry-specific concerns such as famous actors being stalked and people being lured into harmful situations under the pretense of securing a major movie role.

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