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Massive Tribeca Fest Data Leak Exposes Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro and More Celebs’ Contact Info; Meet the Man Who Discovered the Files
The Tribeca Festival suffered a data leak exposing hundreds of thousands of records, including contact details for numerous celebrities such as Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence, Martin Scorsese and Angelina Jolie. The breach was uncovered by cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler, who found the exposed database using an IoT search engine and published his findings in an ExpressVPN blog post, raising fresh concerns about the security of festival and industry data systems.
Fowler identified 666,369 exposed records dating from 2019 to 2026, with a backup file containing a "contacts" folder holding 13,535 entries with names, addresses, phone numbers and emails for prominent figures including Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Morgan Freeman and Michael J. Fox. Tribeca said none of the talent's personal contact information was disclosed, describing most of the data as publicly available business contacts such as those for PR representatives, and stated the exposed information was removed promptly after discovery.
In short
- Tribeca Festival data leak exposed over 666,000 records
- Researcher found celebrities' contact details in exposed database
- Tribeca says only public business contacts, not personal info, were leaked
Explained simply
The Tribeca Festival is a prestigious film festival based in New York that has been running since 2002 and attracts hundreds of filmmakers, industry professionals and celebrities each year. The festival maintains databases of contacts and information relating to its programming, submissions and events.
A data breach exposed a large database of records from the festival's systems, including contact information for numerous people in the film industry along with hundreds of thousands of other records. The breach was discovered by cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler, who reported the unsecured data and prompted its removal by Tribeca.
The incident highlights ongoing concerns about how major cultural institutions and entertainment organisations protect sensitive information. Such breaches underscore the security challenges faced by large organisations that hold extensive databases about public figures and industry professionals.
Art Culture Cybersecurity Technology