Criminals were able to penetrate the dating network and download 70,000 photos - of women only • The pictures are sold to every claimant on Dark-Net

More than 70,000 images of women using the Tinder dating service were hacked this week and shared in an online cybercrime forum - the Gizmodo website says.

Aaron De Vera, a member of the New York Cyber ​​Sexual Assault Task Force, told the media that the images were discovered on a notorious website as a malware dealer on DarkNet (the site's name is stored on the system). Along with the images, there is also a text file containing about 16,000 unique Tinder user IDs - the total number of affected users.

The reason the photos were collected remains unclear, but their availability to network criminals has raised serious concerns that it may be used to perpetrate illegal acts against the users themselves or serve as fake user profiles on other platforms.

A senior official at Tinder told Gizmodo that the use of any photos or information outside the app's domain is strictly prohibited. "The company will take all possible steps to remove the information," it said.

In 2017, a Google subsidiary researcher was able to download about 40,000 profile photos belonging to Tinder users. Matinder was then told that the company "is taking steps to deter and prevent its data utilization." By entities seeking to utilize its API.

A senior official at Tinder told Gizmodo that since the incident, the company has invested additional resources in an effort to address the misuse of its app. Its security team, however, refused to reveal the specific steps being taken. "We work hard to keep our members safe," Tinder spokesman said. "We know this danger is constantly evolving for the entire industry, and we are constantly identifying and implementing new best practices and can make it difficult for someone to commit such theft."