Company Mistakenly Leaves Customer Text Messages Visible

Need something else to worry about as the holidays and the end of the year approach?

Reports are that our text messages were visible…albeit briefly…for all the world to read.

According to researchers from the online privacy company vpnMentor, a database containing millions of private SMS text messages was visible online for an undisclosed amount of time. Reportedly, the culprit was TrueDialog, a Texas-based text messaging organization that develops text messaging solutions for companies large and small to send out marketing materials and urgent alerts.

Included among the information visible online were text messages from customers of TrueDialog’s systems along with phone numbers, job alerts, university finance applications and other private data.

The researchers suggest that "millions of Americans are at risk" and also revealed that they could access the text messages because the logs were "completely unsecured and unencrypted."

"The impact of this data leak can have a lasting impression for hundreds of millions of users. The available information can be sold to both marketers and spammers," the researchers warned.

The database has since been closed, according to the research team.

Meanwhile, if you are anything like me, reading the headline “'Hundreds of millions of people' may have had their text messages exposed online, researchers say” likely sent you running to examine your phone in search of unflattering text messages that might be visible to the world only to discover that 90% of said text messages are an endless stream of food-related queries — for example: “What are we going to eat tonight?”; “Where is the closest place to eat?”; “Why don’t we go out to eat?”; and, more commonly, “Do we have cookies?” immediately followed up with “Can you pick up cookies on the way home?” — sent to a significant other.