By James Pero For The Dailymail
Published: 23:43 BST, 20 May 2019 | Updated: 23:43 BST, 20 May 2019
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A security researcher has discovered a massive online database that exposes the personal contact information of nearly 50 million influencers and brands.
According to a report from TechCrunch, researcher Anurag Sen discovered the database contained the personal contact information of 'prominent food bloggers, celebrities and other social media influencers.'
Sen alerted the site to the list's existence in an attempt to find its creator and get it secured, TechCrunch noted.
Millions of Instagram influencers and celebrities personal information was found in an online, and publicly available, database.
TechCrunch reports that the information in the database appears to have been scraped from publicly available social media accounts and was traced back to a social media marketing firm Chtrbox based in Mumbai, India.
Chtrbox, which pays influencers to post sponsored content onto their pages, also included information on what a post with each person listed in the database would cost, including their number of followers, likes, and reach.
In some cases, the influencers included in the database said they had never had any involvement with Chtrbox.
The company has since pulled the database offline and has not responded to any request for comment including those sent by Mail Online.
As noted by TechCrunch, the existence of the list mirrors a data breach dating back two years ago when Instagram acknowledged a flaw in its API that allowed hackers to obtain the personal information - including email addresses and phone numbers - of 6 million users.
That data also contained personal information of a swath of well-known celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift.
