A cybersecurity researcher has disclosed a data leak at the Tribeca Festival covering 666,369 records, including a file with contact details for thousands of film figures. The festival says the vast majority was publicly available business information and was removed as soon as it was found.
Details:
- Who found it: Jeremiah Fowler, who works for Black Hills Information Security, said he located the data using an IoT search engine and published his findings in an ExpressVPN blog post.
- The scale: The exposure totalled 666,369 records with timestamps from 2019 to 2026, including an unencrypted backup file left inside the production environment.
- The names: Fowler said a “contacts” folder held 13,535 entries with names, addresses and phone numbers for directors including Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro, and actors including Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence and Angelina Jolie.
- The festival’s response: A Tribeca spokesperson said no talent had personal contact information disclosed and that the material was mostly public-facing business contacts. Fowler partly disputed this, saying he saw consumer email accounts.
- No sign of a breach: Fowler said he found no evidence anyone else had accessed the data, and credited the festival with responding quickly.
What to Watch:
Whether the incident prompts festivals to revisit how they store backups remains open, with Fowler warning that AI has sharply raised the risk of such data being used for phishing.
Source: Variety
