People Data Labs, Peatix and others fall victim of data leaks.

A total of 25 breach events were found and analysed resulting in 177,998,906 exposed accounts containing a total of 11 different data types of personal datum . The breaches found publicly and freely available included People Data Labs (Data Enrichment), Peatix, Eatigo, Next Top (URL Redirection) and Tab Crawler. Sign in to view the full library of breach events which includes, where available, reference articles relating to each breach.

Data Breach Analysis

While the sheer scale of compromised data is significant in itself, what truly stands out in this batch is the nature of the services affected, platforms that serve as data aggregators, event coordinators, and digital infrastructure layers such as URL management or web indexing tools. Together, they represent an often-overlooked ecosystem that underpins how personal and professional identities are compiled, tracked, and utilised online.

The breaches collectively involved 11 distinct types of personal data, with some services operating at the nexus of data enrichment and user profiling, amplifying the possible implications of exposure far beyond simple email leaks.

Data Enrichment and Aggregation: People Data Labs

The most notable breach in this group is People Data Labs, a company that offers data enrichment services to businesses, particularly those in the marketing, recruitment, and analytics sectors. PDL aggregates information on millions of individuals globally, linking identities across platforms, social networks, job boards, and corporate databases to form complete user or employee profiles.

Although not a consumer-facing platform in the traditional sense, the impact of a breach here is profound. The data exposed is not user-submitted, but compiled, collected and refined from disparate sources to create detailed profiles. This includes professional histories, social media connections, education background, job titles, and more.

As a result, affected individuals may never have directly interacted with PDL and remain unaware that their information was even part of the database. This creates a double risk:
1. Lack of consent: Users never opted in, nor can they easily opt out.
2. High-resolution profiles: Because the data is enriched, the exposed records are more valuable to malicious actors who wish to impersonate identities or build psychographic models.

The primary victims, in this case, are professionals and job seekers, especially those with active LinkedIn or GitHub profiles, who are often targeted by recruiters, and now, potentially, by scammers or phishers using those same tools.

Event and Community Platforms: Peatix and Eatigo

The inclusion of Peatix (a global event registration and ticketing platform) and Eatigo (a restaurant booking platform active across Southeast Asia) reveals the vulnerabilities of services built to facilitate physical or virtual gatherings.

Peatix is widely used for community-driven events such as tech meetups, artist performances, educational workshops, and grassroots conferences. A data breach here impacts not just registrants, but also event organisers, venue owners, and vendors who rely on accurate participant data. In regions where community activism or professional networking is sensitive, leaked participation could have reputational or political consequences.

Eatigo, on the other hand, targets everyday consumers looking to book dining reservations, often at a discount. This kind of app typically requires contact details, behavioural preferences, and possibly location data. A breach in this context not only affects privacy but also opens the door to social engineering attempts, especially through SMS or mobile-targeted phishing attacks.

In both cases, the exposed populations include urban professionals, small business owners, and digital-savvy consumers, particularly in Asian markets where these platforms have strong user bases.

Infrastructure and Indexing Services: Tab Crawler and Next Top

Tab Crawler and Next Top, though lesser known, represent important digital infrastructure layers. These are indexing platforms or URL redirection services that either catalogue web resources (such as downloadable files, browser tabs, or media links) or assist in managing shortened or redirected URLs.

While these may seem peripheral, breaches involving such services have surprising reach. For example, Tab Crawler collects and displays downloadable guitar tabs and music sheets, making it a niche yet heavily trafficked resource. A breach could potentially expose user login details or IP-based activity logs, valuable not just for spam campaigns but for building profiles of creative or artistic communities.

Next Top, identified as a URL redirection utility, brings a unique layer of risk. These platforms are often used by marketers and SEO professionals but also by spammers and affiliate marketers. Exposure here could include clickthrough data, campaign metadata, or IP targeting configurations, which could be weaponised by attackers to replicate or redirect user behaviour.

The groups likely affected here are digital marketers, online content creators, and consumers in niche interest groups who rely on these platforms for sharing, consumption, or outreach.

Ripple Effects Across Sectors and Systems

One of the challenges in addressing breaches like these lies in their systemic reach. Unlike breaches of standalone social networks or shopping sites, these platforms often function as integrators or intermediaries, meaning their breach can cascade downstream to third-party services, plugins, or enterprise workflows.

Take, for example, People Data Labs, many HR tools, CRM platforms, and analytics dashboards integrate with enrichment services to enhance their datasets. When the source is compromised, so is any software downstream that cached, mirrored, or queried that data. This ripple effect increases the surface area of risk, often well beyond the initial user count.

Similarly, when event platforms like Peatix are compromised, it's not just attendee emails that are exposed. A sophisticated attacker might extract event topics, speakers, or timestamps to launch targeted spear phishing campaigns disguised as legitimate follow-ups or invitations.

Who's Most Likely Impacted?

Across the 25 breaches, several distinct user communities emerge:
- Digital professionals: Especially marketers, developers, and sales teams, whose identities may be included in enriched datasets or linked via work emails and platforms.
- Event participants: Including tech meetups, nonprofit organizers, educators, and social activists whose digital footprints are traceable through RSVP logs or ticketing systems.
- Urban consumers: Particularly in Asia, where services like Eatigo dominate dining and entertainment planning.
- Content creators and musicians: Likely to be users of niche platforms like Tab Crawler, they may now be exposed to creative theft or phishing attempts.
- SEO and affiliate marketers: Whose use of URL tools like Next Top may now reveal internal strategies or client targeting data.

Conclusion

This batch of 25 breach events illustrates that data exposure is not confined to mega-platforms or credential dumps, but reaches deeply into the operational fabric of the digital economy, from the ways we meet and eat, to how we track users or share links. The breach of nearly 178 million accounts should therefore not be measured solely by its size, but by the multiplicity of systems, platforms, and people it connects.

As services grow increasingly interconnected, users and developers alike must think not only about where their data is stored, but also how and by whom it is aggregated, enhanced, or redirected. These breaches serve as a reminder that the data economy, once praised for personalisation and efficiency, comes with vulnerabilities that are just as distributed, and potentially just as impactful.