Another day, another huge database hack.
Earlier this month, security researcher Vinny Troia discovered that Exactis, a Palm Coast, Florida-based data broker, had exposed a database that contained close to 340 million individual records on a publicly accessible server. The haul comprises close to two terabytes of data that appears to include personal information on hundreds of millions of American adults, as well as millions of businesses. It seems like this is a database with pretty much every US citizen in it.
The stolen data includes minute detail for each individual listed, including phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, and other highly personal characteristics for every name. The categories range from interests and habits to the number, age, and gender of the person’s children.
The company’s web site states: “Warehousing over 3.5 billion consumer, business, and digital records, The Exactis Data Cloud provides knowledge and insight to hundreds of firms enabling them to achieve marketing success through the use of high quality data. The Exactis data cloud is one of the largest and most respected in the data marketing industry.”
It is not known if any criminals ever obtained the data. However, security researcher Vinny Troia found that he could easily access everything. He immediately notified Exactis, along with the FBI, about his discovery last week.
You can read more in an article by Andy Greenberg in the Wired web site at: https://www.wired.com/story/exactis-database-leak-340-million-records/.
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Categories: Online Privacy & Security
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