Data Breach

Alibaba/Taobao Data Breach

1100.0M records exposed • November 2019

A software developer at an Alibaba partner company spent 8 months secretly copying data from Taobao, China's biggest shopping site. They collected info on over a billion users.

What Happened

An Alibaba developer scraped 1.1 billion pieces of user data from Taobao over 8 months using crawler software. The data was not sold but was unauthorized collection.

Attack method: Web scraping over 8 months

What Data Was Exposed

User IDs, Mobile numbers, Customer comments

Is your business exposed?

What to Do If You're Affected

  1. 1.

    Review Alibaba account security settings

  2. 2.

    Limit public profile information

Lessons for Businesses

  • Web scraping can be massive in scale
  • Insider threats include business partners
  • API rate limiting is essential

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