Security News > 2021 > December > Gumtree classifieds site leaked personal info via the F12 key
British classifieds site Gumtree.com suffered a data leak after a security researcher revealed that he could access sensitive personally identifiable data of advertisers simply by pressing F12 on the keyboard.
When pressing the F12 key in a web browser, the application will open the developer tools console, which allows you to view a website's source code, monitor network requests, and view error messages produced by the website.
"The site was super leaky. Every advert on the site included the seller's postcode or GPS coordinates - even if the seller requested the map of their location to be hidden. It leaked the sellers email address, and their full name was available via a simple IDOR vulnerability," explained a report by Monie.
Gumtree is one of the top 30 websites in the UK, receiving many millions of unique visitors every month.
The site also features an API exclusively used by the Gumtree app on iOS. Unfortunately, one of that API's endpoints was vulnerable to an IDOR attack, resulting in another leak of full names and other account info.
"In response to these issues, we reported the incident to the Information Commissioner's Office outlining our actions already taken, and planned, to monitor the issue. These included fixing the vulnerabilities, updating our safety messaging on site and mitigating against future issues."