Tag Archive for: News Posts

Data Firm Exposes 235 Million Social Media Profiles

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A social media data broker has exposed the public-facing profiles of 235 million users via a misconfigured online database, according to researchers.

Comparitech teamed up with Bob Diachenko to uncover three identical copies of the data on August 1, left online with no password or other authentication required to access it.

In total, 192 million profiles were scraped from Instagram, 42 million from TikTok and four million from YouTube.

Each record contained some of the following: profile name, real name, profile pic, account description, age, gender and more.

Around a fifth of profiles also contained either a phone number or email address, according to Comparitech.

Although the personal information contained in this trove was all publicly available, social media companies like Facebook have threatened legal action in the past against automated data scraping firms that subsequently sell their collections to marketers.

Comparitech said that although access to the exposed database was shut down three hours after its first disclosure, it’s unclear how long the information was left online without a password.

The firm warned that, if discovered, the trove could have been used by spammers or to make follow-on phishing attacks more convincing.

The data itself was traced back to Social Data, a firm that apparently sells data on social media influencers to marketers. It was at pains to point out that the exposed information was taken from publicly available profiles, even though their consolidation into a single database makes it a more attractive prospect for cyber-criminals.

Comparitech also claimed that “evidence” suggests a connection between the data and a now-defunct company known as Deep Social which was removed from Facebook and Instagram marketing APIs in 2018 and threatened with legal action.

Social Data reportedly denied any connection between the two companies, although some of the original datasets were labelled as follows: “accounts-deepsocial-90” and “accounts-deepsocial-91.”

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News Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/

Travel Site Exposed 37 Million Records Before Attack

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The company behind one of India’s most popular travel booking sites exposed 43GB of customer and corporate data before it was deleted by the infamous “Meow” attacker, according to researchers.

A team at SafetyDetectives led by Anurag Sen discovered an Elasticsearch server without password protection or encryption on August 10.

It failed to get a response from the company in question, government-backed travel marketplace RailYatri, but the database was eventually secured after contact was made with India’s national CERT (CERT-In).

However, that was too late to save most of the information stored there: the Meow bot struck on August 12 and apparently deleted all but 1GB of the data.

The trove itself contained an estimated 37 million records linked to around 700,000 unique users of the popular site, a mobile app version of which has been downloaded over 10 million times on Google Play.

Exposed in the misconfiguration were users’ full names, age, gender, physical and email addresses, mobile phone numbers, booking details, GPS location and names/first and last four digits of payment cards.

“Exposed user information could potentially be used to conduct identity fraud across different platforms and other sites,” argued SafetyDetectives.

“Users’ contact details could be harnessed to conduct a wide variety of scams while personal information from the breach could be used to encourage click-throughs and malware downloads. Personal information is also used by hackers to build up rapport and trust, with a view of carrying out a larger magnitude intrusion in the future.”

The firm also warned that exposed data could have put customers in physical danger.

“RailYatri’s server recorded and stored users’ location information when booking their tickets, and also allowed users to track their journey progress with integrated GPS functionality. This information could be used by hackers to locate the nearest cell tower to the user, and potentially, the user’s actual location including current address,” it explained.

“Regular train users generate clear and distinguishable travel patterns which malicious actors could use to commit violent crime directly upon the individual.”

The bot-driven Meow attack campaign has so far destroyed data from thousands of victims, providing an even greater urgency for IT managers to ensure any cloud databases are properly configured.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

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News Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/

Poor Cybersecurity Behaviours Prevalent Amongst UK Remote Workers

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Nearly a quarter (23%) of UK office workers rely on unauthorized devices to work from home, a new study by CybSafe has found.

The research revealed that poor personal cybersecurity practices are commonplace amongst workers operating outside of corporate environments, which is worrying as home working is expected to become far more prevalent following the COVID-19 crisis.

The survey of 600 UK workers also found that one in 10 (9%) share their work devices with other people in their household.

One in five (20%) said they do not keep collaboration and video conferencing software, such as Zoom, Webex and Microsoft teams up-to-date, while 23% do not ensure software on devices connected to their home WiFi network, including work computers, are updated.

These bad habits could be linked to a lack of adequate cybersecurity training for staff, according to the report, with 65% of workers revealing that they have not received any training on keeping data secure when working remotely in the last six months. Additionally, only 37% of workers had received a working from home cybersecurity policy from their employer by the start of lockdown.

Oz Alashe, CEO of CybSafe, commented: “We now live in a world of borderless organizations where increasing numbers of people work remotely. Many are mobile. The lines between personal and professional are increasingly blurred, and everyone is at greater risk.

“Some staff are making cybersecurity mistakes in their homes, and businesses will need to adjust their cybersecurity approaches accordingly. What may have worked in the past doesn’t necessarily work now. Cybersecurity policy, as well as awareness and behavior change programs, will all require updates based on today’s working conditions.”

Dr John Blythe, head of behavioural science at CybSafe, added: “While our latest research suggests that many UK businesses have been forthcoming with changes to cybersecurity strategy, these haven’t taken place on the scale that we would have hoped for.”

In June, a study by CyberArk found that employee work from home habits are putting businesses at greater risk of cyber-attack.

 

We’re Cloudscape.

We believe you should have the best backup solutions for your business.

We’ll get to know your business and determine the most appropriate solution to meet your technical requirements while being commercially sensible in cost and productive with time.

If you feel that your data isn’t being backed up correctly, please get in touch.

 

News Source: https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/