The possibility that data could be inadvertently exposed in a misconfigured or otherwise unsecured database is a longtime privacy nightmare that has been difficult to fully address.
But the new discovery of a massive trove of 184 million records—including Apple, Facebook, and Google logins and credentials for accounts connected to multiple governments—underscores the risks of recklessly compiling sensitive information in a repository that could become a single point of failure. In early May, longtime data-breach hunter and security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered an exposed Elastic database containing 184,162,718 records across more than 47 GB of data.
Read more…
Source: WIRED News
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- Greek police data leak exposes details of elite crime-fighting unit members
October 18, 2024
A Greek police officers association says it is planning legal action after names and details of hundreds of officers from a new elite crime-fighting agency were published on the internet. The Directorate for Combating Organised Crime, DAOE, was launched Thursday to tackle organized crime activities including contract killings, fuel smuggling and money laundering. Police officials confirmed ...
- Dutch police leak leaves data of 62,000 officers in hands of hackers
September 30, 2024
Police are continuing to investigate the impact of a data leak last week in which hackers obtained the “work-related contact data of all police officers”. The Dutch national police force employs some 62,000 officers. According to an email sent to staff at the weekend, police chief Janny Knol an “office account” was hacked revealing names, email ...
- Indonesia’s tax agency probes alleged personal data breach
September 19, 2024
Indonesia’s tax agency is investigating an alleged data breach that exposes the taxpayer identification numbers of millions of Indonesians, including President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, his ministers and his two sons, an official said. A series of cyber-attacks have hit Indonesian companies and government agencies in the past few years, which experts attribute to the government’s lax ...
- Mystery database containing sensitive info on 762,000 car-owners discovered by researchers
September 6, 2024
In early August, cybersecurity researchers from Cybernews discovered an unprotected database containing sensitive information on hundreds of thousands of Chinese individuals. To this day, they haven’t figured out who the database belongs to, or why it was generated and left open in the first place. Using Elasticsearch, a search engine for databases, the team of researchers ...
- Northern Ireland: Police Ombudsman sorry for ‘distressing’ data leak as investigation is launched
September 1, 2024
An investigation has been launched after a data breach led to the details of current and former Police Ombudsman staff members being accidently released. The Police Ombudsman (PONI) has apologised for the data leak incident involving 160 current and former staff. A document containing some of their personal details was “inadvertently released” to 22 people who ...
- Unveiling Mobile App Vulnerabilities: How Popular Apps Leak Sensitive Data
August 27, 2024
In an increasingly digital world, the importance of mobile security cannot be overstated. With millions of apps available on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, users trust developers to safeguard their personal information. Unfortunately, this trust is often misplaced. A key step in preventing unauthorized access to user data is encryption, especially when it comes ...