Mate1.com

Profile narrative

Mate1.com, also known as Mate1, operates as an online dating platform headquartered in the United States. The service provides a website where individuals can create profiles, search for potential partners, and communicate with other users seeking romantic or social connections. Its primary market consists of adults looking to meet others via digital matchmaking, and it functions as a web‑based service accessible to users across the country and potentially internationally. The platform’s core offering revolves around user‑generated profiles and messaging features designed to facilitate introductions.

In February 2016, Mate1 experienced a security breach in which a hacker gained command access to its server and exfiltrated a MySQL database containing approximately 27 million user email addresses stored alongside plaintext passwords. The attacker claimed to have removed bot accounts from an original set of about 40 million records, citing identifiable password patterns among fraudulent entries. Subsequent analysis of a data sample confirmed that nearly all email addresses corresponded to valid accounts, although some contained typographical errors or may have been registered without the owner’s consent. The breach exposed the site’s practice of storing credentials in plain text and its password‑recovery feature that emailed those credentials unencrypted, highlighting a lack of basic security controls. This incident underscored the risk that reused passwords from Mate1 could be leveraged to compromise higher‑value accounts such as email or financial services. The stolen data was reportedly offered for sale on a dark web forum for 20 bitcoins, equivalent to roughly $8,700 at the time, though the actual transaction terms remain unverified.

Incidents

1 incident linked to this organisation.