It couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch. Some of Hollywood’s A-listers are the victims of a massive data breach tied to an online database that’s connected with Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival.
According to reports, a cybersecurity researcher named Jeremiah Fowler identified four unsecured databases that exposed 666,369 records. Among the cache of digital bits and bytes were private email addresses, cell phone numbers, and even user device information, which gives hackers some pretty potent data if they want to do some damage.
In other words, if hackers wanted to scam the people affected by the breach as part of a malware or phishing attack, they would have obtained details such as which version of an iPhone the celebrity uses, whether the celeb uses a certain browser like Safari, and even the software versions installed on the phone or computer.
Affected celebrities include De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Morgan Freeman, Winona Ryder, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Neil Patrick Harris, Hilary Duff, Rami Malek, George Lucas, Michael Douglas, Danny Boyle, and others.
Tribeca Film Festival, A-list celebrities exposed in major data breach. I saw names such as Scorsese, Lucas, Ron Howard, De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Neil Patrick Harris, Hilary Duff, Rami Malek and many more. https://t.co/tMBosd9Xws
— Jeremiah Fowler Security Researcher (@yoda69) July 25, 2026
“A reported 200,000 records were attached to actors, directors, producers, media members, festival staff, and other industry professionals,” reported CyberNews, referencing a post Fowler wrote online. “The records were said to be time-stamped with dates ranging from 2019 to 2026. What’s wild is that Fowler said the databases were publicly accessible without password protection or encryption before he notified the festival and subsequently secured.”
Fowler said that once he discovered the data breach, he notified the people at the Tribeca Film Festival just prior to its 12-day annual event, which started on June 3. Since then, the festival has said that it removed the databases from the internet and is now investigating the situation.
CyberNews reported, “It remains unclear how long the information was publicly accessible or whether anyone accessed it maliciously. There is no suggestion the Tribeca Film Festival was responsible for the alleged exposure. This means it's unclear how long the information was exposed or whether anyone else accessed it before it was taken offline.”
What’s interesting is that Fowler discovered the breach on the open internet where anyone could have gained access. This wasn’t some dark web repository of private information.
Yahoo! Tech reported that FTC data has shown that “impersonation fraud losses ballooned from $55 million in 2020 to $445 million in 2024. A leaked celebrity phone number is not just trivia — it is raw material for convincing fraud.”
I have a question for you. Are you feeling any sympathy for these celebs? I mean, they did nothing wrong here. They are just victims of circumstance. Don’t you feel bad, just a little? I didn’t think so.
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