Alibaba’s Online Store Redmart Suffers Data Breach of More Than Million Accounts, Experts say Company’s Fault

According to ZDNet, “once beloved for its streamlined and clean users interface, the integrated RedMart experience was described by customers as cluttered, difficult navigate, and missing several popular features such as the ability to update a scheduled order and access to the favorite items list.” In its email, the firm confirmed that the hackers took the information from the database of its online grocery platform, RedMart. RedMart had been inactive for more than eighteen months. Experts say that the attack on RedMart was bound to happen as the company didn’t take cybersecurity measures when it incorporated the app into its digital platform around a year ago. 

There were various flaws in the integration policy when the company merged. According to experts, Lazada should have done a review of the process after completing the transition. After a hacker claimed that he had access to RedMart’s one million accounts, the incident became famous, including personal information like banking details, passwords, contacts, addresses, and names. Lazada had taken RedMart in November 2016. The company has notified the affected users about the data breach. The user accounts have automatically logged out and have been told to change their passwords. Lazada has confirmed that RedMart’s database was on a third party provider’s hosting service and the accounts hacked were out of date. 

The company says it has taken immediate measures to prevent the issue, and any illegal access has been denied, and no customer data has been breached. “The Southeast Asian e-commerce operator in January 2019 announced plans to integrate the RedMart app into its platform, more than two years after it acquired RedMart. Lazada itself was acquired by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in April 2016,” reports ZDNet.