Launched in 2011, Firebase is a mobile app development platform that Google acquired in 2014. It can be used for authentication, hosting, cloud storage, analytics, messaging, and more.
Roughly 30% of all the applications in Google Play are believed to be using Google Firebase to store user data, but many of them are not properly secured. Overall, 4.8% of all mobile apps using Firebase are believed to be leaking personal information, access tokens, and other types of data.
After looking at 515,735 Android applications in Google Play, Comparitech’s researchers found 4,282 apps that leak sensitive information.
