Bad news for Deezer users: over 220+ million users' info exposed

If you're a user of the well-known music streaming app, you'll probably want to change your security details, or even consider switching after the Paris-based company admitted it was the target of a hacker attack that stole the data of approximately 229 million users back in 2019.

According to RestorePrivacy, the breach of the stolen data was first disclosed on November 6th last year in a hacker forum, where a user stated that they had stolen data from over 240 million music streaming users. Among the private information leaked we can find things such as name and surname, date of birth, email address, gender, location data, date of affiliation and user ID. The hacker published a list with the information of at least 5 million people and claimed to have another 60gb with the rest of the data.

Shortly after this information came to light, Deezer posted an official response on the subject, admitting the data breach and explaining that the data was stolen through an invasion of a third-party partner with which the company worked. "The data in question was manipulated by a third-party partner with whom we had worked and that had access to certain data. The data was not accessible from Deezer's systems. However, some data, including email addresses and certain data of some users, may have been accessed and potentially affected" they said. They also ensured that information regarding passwords or payment details were not leaked, but regardless of that, there is no doubt that the type of information violated is sensitive enough for users to be victims of fraud or impersonation.

If this wasn't enough reason for its users to consider looking for other alternatives to Deezer, let's remember that just a few months ago the platform announced the end of its free plan until January 23 in some countries with their highest user base, such as Chile, Peru and Colombia, which leaves the app at a disadvantage compared to other services like Spotify or Tidal.

We recommend that you not only change your Deezer credentials even if you haven't been using it for a while, but always use Two-factor authentication (2FA) on all the services you use (whenever it's available). You can also keep an eye on services like Have I been pwned? and other Data Breach Tools to keep up to date on your data that has been compromised in a massive data breach. Finally, remember to use a Password Manager like 1Password to increase the security level of your passwords and renew them often.