In this eye-opening episode of IT SPARC Cast - CVE of the Week, John and Lou dive into a double-breach nightmare involving the TEA app—a dating safety app marketed to women. What began as a leak of 72,000 user images and 13,000 photo IDs escalated into a much more severe incident: over 1.1 million private messages containing deeply personal topics were exposed due to unprotected Firebase storage.

We examine the catastrophic lapses in security hygiene, discuss the enterprise IT lessons learned, and reflect on the reputational and legal ramifications that follow when data protection is treated as an afterthought. Whether you’re a CISO, a privacy advocate, or just someone who cares about where their data lives, this is a must-listen.

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📌 Key Talking Points:

•Legacy database exposes sensitive identity images and chat content

•TEA app suffers two breaches—one legacy, one current

•Firebase misconfiguration allowed full access to private conversations

•Enterprise-level lessons on paranoia, trust, and protecting sensitive services

•How consumer apps impact corporate environments when users overlap

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🔗 Social Links:

IT SPARC Cast

@ITSPARCCast on X

https://www.linkedin.com/company/sparc-sales/

John Barger

@john_Video on X

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbarger/

Lou Schmidt

@loudoggeek on X

https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-schmidt-b102446/

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