Under Armor Admits Huge Data Leak in MyFitnessPal App

Under Armor has admitted that nearly 150 million users of the smartphone application "MyFitnessPal" were hacked.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Apr 03, 2018

Under Armor has admitted to a huge data leak in its smartphone application, "MyFitnessPal." The company says around 150 million users were hacked in February of this year.

The sports company stated that "an unauthorized party acquired data associated with MyFitnessPal user accounts" occurred in Feb. 2018 but it only became aware of the breach last week.

"The company quickly took steps to determine the nature and scope of the issue and to alert the MyFitnessPal community of the incident," a statement said.

The data includes usernames, passwords and email addresses, but did not reveal bank accounts, drivers license numbers or social security information.

"Four days after learning of the issue, the company began notifying the MyFitnessPal community via email and through in-app messaging," continued the statement. "The notice contains recommendations for MyFitnessPal users regarding account security steps they can take to help protect their information. The company will be requiring all MyFitnessPal users to change their passwords and is urging users to do so immediately."

"You might not think about the information you submit to fitness applications as sensitive, but if you're using the same password for other, more valuable applications, than the risk is really much more serious," Tim Erlin, VP, product management and strategy at Tripwire said. "Reusing passwords across multiple services and applications increased the risk of compromise."

This is the biggest data breach in 2018 so far, and Under Armor said it is "working with leading data security firms to assist in its investigation" as well as law enforcement authorities.  

The MyFitnessPal app lets users monitor their calorie intake and measure it against the amount of exercise they are doing. With a database of more than two million foods available to choose from.