Alon Gal

Alon Gal
Born1996
Tel Aviv, Israel
NationalityIsraeli
Other namesUnder The Breach (Underthebreach)
Known forOnline privacy advocate
Websitewww.hudsonrock.com

Alon Gal is an Israeli cybersecurity expert and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Hudson Rock,[1] a cybercrime intelligence company.[2][3][4]

Data breaches

One of Gal's contributions to the industry was to uncover a massive data breach that affected over 533 million Facebook users.[3] The breach included users' phone numbers, email addresses, birthdays, and other personal information. Gal was the first to report the breach, which ultimately led to a $276 million fine for Facebook from the Irish Data Protection Commissioner for violating General Data Protection Regulation laws.[5]

In addition to the Facebook breach, Gal also played a role in uncovering a 2023 data breach that affected over 200 million Twitter users. The breach involved user information, including email addresses, usernames, and other personal information.[2]

Gal's work has also led to the uncovering of other significant data breaches, including a T-Mobile breach that exposed the personal information of 40 million customers.[6]

For a period of time between 2019 and 2021, Gal operated a pseudo-anonymous Twitter account and a Medium (website) blog called "Under The Breach", the account gained popularity for the uncovering of several additional data breaches such as the 91 million Indonesian Tokopedia users data leak,[7] the 337,000 Maltese voters database leak which resulted in a 65,000 euro fine,[8] and the 20 million BigBasket users data leak.[9]

References

  1. ^ "Twitter in data-protection probe after '400 million' user details up for sale". BBC News. 2022-12-29. Retrieved 2023-05-19.
  2. ^ a b Menn, Joseph. "Hackers leak email addresses tied to 235 million Twitter accounts". The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  3. ^ a b Holmes, Aaron. "533 million Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  4. ^ "Twitter hacked, email addresses of over 200 million users exposed: Report". WION. Retrieved 2023-05-13.
  5. ^ Roth, Emma (2022-11-28). "Meta fined $276 million over Facebook data leak involving more than 533 million users". The Verge. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  6. ^ Lerman, Rachel (19 August 2021). "T-Mobile hack is a return to the roots of cybercrime". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 23 October 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  7. ^ "Indonesia's Tokopedia probes alleged data leak of 91 million users". Reuters. 2020-05-02. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  8. ^ "IT firm C-Planet fined €65,000 over massive voter data breach". Times of Malta. Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  9. ^ "Big Basket data breach: email IDs, phone numbers, home addresses of two crore Indians allegedly leaked on the web". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-04-28.