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

  • Progressing in Capabilities

    Progressing in Capabilities

    Hazardous areas within industries like oil and gas, manufacturing, agriculture and the like, have long-sought reliable video surveillance cameras and equipment that can operate safely in these harsh and unpredictable environments. Read Now

  • A Comprehensive Nationwide Solution

    A Comprehensive Nationwide Solution

    Across the United States, manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, truck yards, parking lots and car dealerships all have a common concern. They are targets for catalytic converters. In nearly every region, cases of catalytic converter thefts have skyrocketed. Read Now

  • Planning for Your Perimeter

    Planning for Your Perimeter

    The perimeter is an organization’s first line of defense and a critical element of any security and surveillance program. Even if a building’s interior or exterior security is strong, without a solid perimeter surveillance approach any company or business is vulnerable. Read Now

  • The Key Issue

    The Key Issue

    It is February 2014. A woman is getting ready in her room on a cruise ship when she hears a knock on the door; it is a crewmember delivering breakfast. She is not presentable so she tells him to leave it by the door. Read Now

Featured Cybersecurity

New Products

  • Genetec Security Center

    Genetec Security Center

    This major new release allows more system components to run in the cloud, reducing the gap between cloud and on-premises security systems. It also makes it easier to connect external systems and tap external data for use in dashboards, maps and investigations without relying on complex, specialized integrations. 3

  • VideoEdge 2U High Capacity Network Video Recorder

    VideoEdge 2U High Capacity Network Video Recorder

    Johnson Controls announces a powerful recording solution to meet demanding requirements with its VideoEdge 2U High Capacity Network Video Recorder. This solution combines the powerful capabilities of victor with the intelligence of VideoEdge NVRs, fueled by Tyco Artificial Intelligence, for video management that provides actionable insights to save time, money and lives. 3

  • Connect ONE’s powerful cloud-hosted management platform provides the means to tailor lockdowns and emergency mass notifications throughout a facility – while simultaneously alerting occupants to hazards or next steps, like evacuation.

    Connect ONE®

    Connect ONE’s powerful cloud-hosted management platform provides the means to tailor lockdowns and emergency mass notifications throughout a facility – while simultaneously alerting occupants to hazards or next steps, like evacuation. 3