SoundCloud warns of data breach with 'limited data' of a fifth of its users

Following a period of instability over the last few days, SoundCloud has confirmed a data breach by “a purported threat actor group”. The streaming service says that it “detected unauthorized activity in an ancillary service dashboard” and that an investigation found that “certain limited data that we hold” had been accessed.

SoundCloud says that while around 20 percent of users’ data was involved, “the data involved consisted only of email addresses and information already visible on public […] profiles”.

While SoundCloud is quick to stress that the issue has now been resolved and that there is no ongoing risk to security, it provides some detail what happened and how it responded.

No information who may have been responsible have been release yet, but SoundCloud says:

SoundCloud recently detected unauthorized activity in an ancillary service dashboard. Upon making this discovery, we immediately activated our incident response protocols and promptly contained the activity. We also engaged leading third-party cybersecurity experts to assist in a thorough investigation and response. Following the containment, SoundCloud experienced denial of service attacks, two of which were able to temporarily disable our platform's availability on the web only.

We understand that a purported threat actor group accessed certain limited data that we hold. We have completed an investigation into the data that was impacted, and no sensitive data (such as financial or password data) has been accessed. The data involved consisted only of email addresses and information already visible on public SoundCloud profiles and affected approximately 20% of SoundCloud users.

We are confident that any access to SoundCloud data has been curtailed.

The company goes on to talk a bit what it did upon learning the incident:

Working with independent cybersecurity experts, we have taken immediate steps to further strengthen our systems, including: enhancing our monitoring and threat-detection, reviewing and reinforcing identity and access controls and conducting a comprehensive audit of related systems. As part of these updates, some configuration changes have caused some users on VPNs to experience temporary connectivity issues. We are actively working to resolve these VPN related access issues.

The article concludes with a “What You Can Expect ” section:

As always, we recommend our users to follow general best online security practices, remain vigilant and be aware of phishing attempts.