[BreachExchange] Five billion records exposed in open ‘data breach database’

[Destry Winant]

https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/database-security/five-billion-records-exposed-in-open-data-breach-database/

More than five billion records were exposed after a Keepnet Labs
Elasticsearch “data breach database” housing a trove of security
incidents from the last seven years was left unprotected.

“Data was very well structured,” wrote security researcher Bob
Diachenko, who discovered the Elasticsearch instance, of the
information, which included hashtypes, leak dates, passwords, email
addresses, email domains and leak sources.

Diachenko said he was able to confirm some of the “prominent” leaks in
the database, such as Adobe, Last.fm, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumbler and
VK.

Calling the leak potentially “one of the biggest to date – five
billion records were exposed,” Anurag Kahol, CTO at Bitglass, pointed
out that hackers, like security researchers, also “use tools designed
to detect abusable misconfigurations within IT assets like
ElasticSearch databases.” Bad actors seeking to appropriate data could
have easily exploited the vulnerability, he said.

“The sensitive information exposed from Keepnet Lab’s Elasticsearch
database is more than enough fodder for hackers to launch targeted
phishing attacks, engage in account takeover fraud, or even make a
profit by selling the data on the dark web,” said Chris DeRamus, CTO
at DivvyCloud.