The Kardashian corporate umbrella of human brands just released a new suite of apps and websites, and it only took two seconds for someone to discover a glaring privacy hole. Also, Kim is way, way less popular than Kylie Jenner.

Software engineer Alaxic Smith found a very easy means of penetrating the new Kardashian web mothership (easy for an engineer, at least), and found a trove of information that spammers eager for primo demographic targets would eat up: the names and emails of over 660,000 subscribers.

Initially, I thought that this was some a page filled with dummy data, but as I started to look closer, it wasn’t. I now had access to the first names, last name, and email addresses of the 663,270 people who signed up for Kylie Jenner’s website. I then noticed that I could do the same API call across each of the websites and return the same exact data for each site. I also had the ability to create / destroy users, photos, videos, and more. It’s clear why this is a major issue, and raises the question: should users trust not only their personal information but also payment information with these apps?

Smith also discovered something that will surely shock the Instagram-Industrial Complex: Kim Kardashian is hugely eclipsed by her sister Kylie, who has distorted herself to not only resemble Big Kim, but overshadow her (online, at least):

User Stats (as of 09/15/2015 2:27 AM PST)

Kylie Jenner (thekyliejenner.com): 663,270 Users

Kim Kardashian (kimkardashianwest.com): 80,679 Users

Kendall Jenner (kendallj.com): 50,756 Users

Khloe Kardashian (khloewithak.com): 96,635 Users
Total Users: 891,340

Total Users: 891,340

One thing is for sure, only the Kardashians can drop apps out of no where with no prior promotion and amass nearly 1 million users in less than 24 hours. Their influence is undeniable, whether you think they should have the platform they do or not. Another thing that is also telling of this data, millennials want to be closer to their favorite people, artists, athletes and more than ever. There’s no coincidence that Kylie had ~828% more signups than Kim.

Almost equally interesting as the lack of trust you should place in Kardashian cyber initiatives is the speed at which their lawyers shut down Alaxic’s findings, Motherboard reports:

He published his findings on Medium, but has since taken the post down after being successfully forced into silence by the site’s developer, Whalerock Digital Media. (A cached version is still available.) Smith was also barred from speaking to the press.

It’s unclear how exactly he was “forced” into silence—I’ve reached out to Smith for comment. Until then, get your contouring tutorials at your own risk.

Photos: Getty, Screenshot: Alaxis Smith


Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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