Computer Science Student Shows Venmo Transactions Can Be Easily Acquired

Computer Science Student Shows Venmo Transactions Can Be Easily Acquired

A year after a privacy researcher showed the world that Venmo transactions could be easily accessed, a computer science student scraped seven million Venmo transactions to increase awareness of the issue.

A computer science student, Dan Salmon, has been scraping Venmo transactions for the past six months to prove that Venmo’s public activity is not hard to obtain, even after last year, when a privacy researcher showed that Venmo need to curb its privacy issue. The result is that seven million Venmo transactions were obtained by Salmon in this six-month period.

Salmon told TechCrunch he did this in order to raise awareness and encourage users to set their transactions to private. He said that despite Venmo changing their privacy policy, it is still easy to gain access to millions of transactions through Venmo’s developer API. User permission is not necessary to access this information.

“There’s truly no reason to have this API open to unauthenticated requests,” he told TechCrunch. “The API only exists to provide like a scrolling feed of public transactions for the home page of the app, but if that’s your goal, then you should require a token with each request to verify that the user is logged in.”

Sam Bakken, the senior product marketing manager at OneSpan, said that Venmo purposefully designed the homepage news feed feature in order to increase engagement, and some users enjoy looking through the feed to see what their friends are doing. This means that some users leave their transactions available to the public on purpose. He said that he hopes this information will encourage some users to go private with their information.

“Users do have the ability to decide whether their transactions are shared publicly or with friends or not at all,” Bakken said. “I’d argue Venmo should default to keeping users’ transactions private, and if this incident doesn’t convince Venmo to change their policy – I hope at least more people will become aware of this and consider changing their settings.”

Ameya Talwalkar, co-founder and CPO of Cequence Security, said that scraping attacks are becoming increasingly harder to prevent due to the hyper-connectivity culture of this age.

“Many of today’s hyper-connected organizations are faced with the challenge of how to address content scraping attacks in an efficient and scalable manner,” Talwalkar said. “The impact of this attack can be wide-ranging, starting from overspending on infrastructure to devastating loss of intellectual property. Of all the automated business logic abuse attacks, content scraping is the most difficult to prevent.”

About the Author

Kaitlyn DeHaven is the Associate Content Editor for the Infrastructure Solutions Group at 1105 Media.

Featured

  • 12 Commercial Crime Sites to Do Your Research

    12 Commercial Crime Sites to Do Your Research

    Understanding crime statistics in your industry and area is crucial for making important decisions about your security budget. With so much information out there, how can you know which statistics to trust? Read Now

  • Boosting Safety and Efficiency

    Boosting Safety and Efficiency

    In alignment with the state of Mississippi’s mission of “Empowering Mississippi citizens to stay connected and engaged with their government,” Salient's CompleteView VMS is being installed throughout more than 150 state boards, commissions and agencies in order to ensure safety for thousands of constituents who access state services daily. Read Now

  • Live From GSX: Post-Show Review

    Live From GSX: Post-Show Review

    This year’s Live From GSX program was a rousing success! Again, we’d like to thank our partners, and IPVideo, for working with us and letting us broadcast their solutions to the industry. You can follow our Live From GSX 2023 page to keep up with post-show developments and announcements. And if you’re interested in working with us in 2024, please don’t hesitate to ask about our Live From programs for ISC West in March or next year’s GSX. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • GSX
  • People Say the Funniest Things

    People Say the Funniest Things

    By all accounts, GSX version 2023 was completely successful. Apparently, there were plenty of mix-ups with the airlines and getting aircraft from the East Coast into Big D. I am all ears when I am in a gathering of people. You never know when a nugget of information might flip out. Read Now

    • Industry Events
    • GSX

Featured Cybersecurity

Webinars

New Products

  • A8V MIND

    A8V MIND

    Hexagon’s Geosystems presents a portable version of its Accur8vision detection system. A rugged all-in-one solution, the A8V MIND (Mobile Intrusion Detection) is designed to provide flexible protection of critical outdoor infrastructure and objects. Hexagon’s Accur8vision is a volumetric detection system that employs LiDAR technology to safeguard entire areas. Whenever it detects movement in a specified zone, it automatically differentiates a threat from a nonthreat, and immediately notifies security staff if necessary. Person detection is carried out within a radius of 80 meters from this device. Connected remotely via a portable computer device, it enables remote surveillance and does not depend on security staff patrolling the area. 3

  • FEP GameChanger

    FEP GameChanger

    Paige Datacom Solutions Introduces Important and Innovative Cabling Products GameChanger Cable, a proven and patented solution that significantly exceeds the reach of traditional category cable will now have a FEP/FEP construction. 3

  • PE80 Series

    PE80 Series by SARGENT / ED4000/PED5000 Series by Corbin Russwin

    ASSA ABLOY, a global leader in access solutions, has announced the launch of two next generation exit devices from long-standing leaders in the premium exit device market: the PE80 Series by SARGENT and the PED4000/PED5000 Series by Corbin Russwin. These new exit devices boast industry-first features that are specifically designed to provide enhanced safety, security and convenience, setting new standards for exit solutions. The SARGENT PE80 and Corbin Russwin PED4000/PED5000 Series exit devices are engineered to meet the ever-evolving needs of modern buildings. Featuring the high strength, security and durability that ASSA ABLOY is known for, the new exit devices deliver several innovative, industry-first features in addition to elegant design finishes for every opening. 3