Temu denies data breach claim made by threat actor

Chinese online retailer Temu says the company hasn’t been hacked and no corporate or personal data has been stolen by any threat actor.

Earlier this week, a threat actor called ‘smokinthashit’ posted a message on BreachForums, claiming he stole a database containing 87 million records from Temu.

According to the hacker, the database included personal details of customers, including full names, dates of birth, gender, shipping addresses, phone numbers, usernames and IDs, IP addresses, and hashed passwords.

“The data has never been sold before. Only one copy will be sold. For samples, tests and other MD. Only serious people and not timewasters. Thanks,” ‘smokinthashit’ wrote in a message on BreachForums.

Temu however denies that any data was stolen from its servers.

“Temu's security team has conducted a comprehensive investigation into the alleged data breach and can confirm that the claims are categorically false; the data being circulated is not from our systems. Not a single line of data matches our transaction records,” the online retailer told BleepingComputer in a response.

As a matter of fact, Temu threatens to sue anyone who claims to have breached the company. “We take any attempt to tarnish our reputation or harm our users extremely seriously and reserve the right to pursue legal action against those responsible for spreading false information and attempting to profit from such malicious activities.”

The Chinese e-commerce platform emphasizes it follows ‘industry-leading practices for data protection and cybersecurity’ to give its customers peace of mind.

The threat actor in return tells BleepingComputer the data breach is real and that he still has access to Temu’s email account and internal panels. He says he was able to gain access to the company’s systems because of vulnerabilities in their code.

As of writing, the threat actor hasn’t provided any proof of these claims and BleepingComputer wasn’t able to verify the validity of his claims.

Temu is a popular and rapidly growing e-commerce platform, offering a wide range of products at low and competitive prices. However, there have been concerns about the company’s data privacy practices and product quality. So far, the company hasn’t been associated with any major data breaches.