According to a security researcher, Tinder, yes that Tinder, lacks basic HTTPS encryption for its photos, enabling any marginally tech savvy person using Wi-Fi to spy on a user’s pics. On top of that, they could also exploit the lack of HTTPS to insert their own images into a user’s photo stream.
Now that’s not the kind of insertion a lot of Tinder fans would be looking for.
There’s also the possibility that embarrassing info could leak out. Which of course would be bad. It’s all explained on this blog post from Israeli cyber security firm Checkmark. It’s a very interesting read and worth the time for any Tinder user to peruse before the swipe left, or right, or whatever you’re supposed to do on Tinder. Checkmark says it alerted Tinder to the vulnerabilities and exploit potential, but the company has yet to respond or fix the security holes. But they did respond to Wired when they started asking questions and said that they’re working on it and that the web app does use HTTPS.
So for those of you who use Tinder, will that make you stop using Tinder for whatever you use it for? Not that there’s anything wrong with using Tinder.