PropTiger, Travelio and others fall victim of data leaks.

A total of 9 breach events were found and analysed resulting in 2,822,827 exposed accounts containing a total of 18 different data types of personal datum . The breaches found publicly and freely available included PropTiger, Travelio, Gift Card Saving, Tradeguider and Protemps Employment Services. Sign in to view the full library of breach events which includes, where available, reference articles relating to each breach.

Data Breach Analysis

While smaller in number than some previously observed breach sets, the platforms affected in this group represent critical and deeply personal aspects of users’ lives, including housing, employment, financial tools, and travel. These industries are often trusted with sensitive and uniquely identifying data, and as such, breaches in these sectors pose both economic and identity-related risks to impacted individuals.

The platforms span a spectrum of services but share a common reliance on user trust, data accuracy, and real-world identity linkage.

Understanding the Industries Involved

The diversity of the platforms in this set provides a broad view of how different sectors are handling, or failing to protect, user data in the digital age.

PropTiger is one of India’s largest real estate platforms, helping users find property listings, evaluate housing prices, and interact with brokers. A breach here is especially consequential due to the nature of the data exchanged during real estate transactions, including:
- Full names, mobile numbers, and email addresses
- Preferences for home location and budget range
- Direct contact with property agents

For a user researching or initiating a home purchase or rental, such exposure not only violates privacy but also opens the door to targeted scams, fraud attempts, or even impersonation. Real estate, particularly in growing markets like India, is also a target-rich environment for phishing attacks and spam, making data from platforms like PropTiger especially valuable.

Travelio offers apartment and vacation rental services similar to Airbnb, with a primary focus in Southeast Asia. Travel platforms often hold sensitive details that go beyond standard account information:
- Passport or national ID uploads (for verification)
- Booking and payment history
- Travel dates and guest records

This type of information, when exposed, presents unique physical security risks (for example, knowing when someone is away from home) and identity verification threats (via stolen credentials or payment method details). In a post-COVID world where contactless check-in and identity matching are increasingly digitised, any breach in travel services can have repercussions far beyond a lost reservation.

Gift Card Saving is likely a platform for trading, purchasing, or storing discounted gift cards, part of the growing market for second-hand or promotional retail value exchanges. Platforms in this category often hold:
- Linked payment information
- Personal retail behaviour
- Email and mobile details used for account recovery or fraud alerts

Although they might seem low-stakes compared to bank accounts, platforms like these offer attackers potential vectors into larger payment ecosystems. For example, by harvesting details from a retail platform, bad actors can initiate social engineering attacks that attempt to breach more secure systems.

Tradeguider focuses on financial analysis and market education, possibly targeting retail investors, day traders, and market enthusiasts. The significance of a breach here is twofold:
1. Credential risk – many users in financial spaces reuse passwords across brokerage, crypto, and trading platforms.
2. Profile targeting – understanding who is financially literate or actively trading makes users valuable targets for advanced phishing or scam campaigns promising insider tips or “urgent” broker actions.

The psychological element of urgency is high in trading environments, and bad actors know this, making data from breached trading education sites disproportionately useful in social engineering efforts.

Protemps is a staffing agency and HR services provider, making it one of the most sensitive entries in this breach cohort. Employment services are among the highest-risk sectors in data security because they often require:
- Resumes and CVs with full work history
- Scans of government-issued ID
- Tax identification numbers
- Salary and job preference information

A breach in a staffing service could lead to direct identity theft, income fraud, or false employment records. Moreover, job seekers are often in particularly vulnerable positions when they share data on such platforms, believing that doing so is necessary for career advancement or legal employment verification.

Who Is Likely to Be Affected?

Given the verticals involved, this breach set touches a wide cross-section of the global working and middle class:
- Homebuyers and renters, particularly those in emerging markets, who may have shared personal contact details and even financial preferences via platforms like PropTiger.
- Urban travellers and digital nomads using short-term rental services like Travelio, often linking payment cards or passports for verification.
- Gig workers and budget-savvy consumers who use gift card platforms as part of their everyday financial strategy.
- Retail investors or personal finance enthusiasts, many of whom treat platforms like Tradeguider as supplementary learning hubs but still use credentials linked to actual portfolios.
- Job seekers and contract workers, particularly in Southeast Asia, who entrust staffing agencies with full employment histories and critical identification documents.

Security Takeaways from This Breach Set

Despite the seemingly small size, under 3 million accounts, this breach group demonstrates how even modest data sets can reveal highly consequential details when harvested across sensitive industries.

Key observations:
- Data enrichment makes small breaches powerful: Even partial exposure (email + name) can be cross-referenced with social media or other leaks to build full identity profiles.
- Breach transparency remains inconsistent: It’s unclear if all affected platforms disclosed these breaches directly to users. Smaller companies often lack public breach disclosure practices or legal pressure to do so.
- Credential reuse continues to pose systemic risks: Users tend to reuse login details across personal finance, work, and entertainment services — giving attackers lateral access into unrelated platforms.

Conclusion

This set of 9 breach events, while not as large in scale as others, offers a critical case study into the ongoing threat posed by breaches in life-essential digital services, from housing and jobs to travel and trading. The 2.8 million accounts exposed likely represent more than just usernames and passwords; they point to people's aspirations, economic activities, and career trajectories.

As more individuals depend on digital intermediaries for housing, employment, and finance, platforms in these sectors must elevate their data protection standards, and users must be vigilant about how and where they share personal information. This is not just a technical issue; it's an ongoing negotiation of digital trust in a world where data is increasingly tied to identity, reputation, and opportunity.