An unknown mystery database exposed nearly 80 million U.S households data that impacting up to 65% of US households.
Security Researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar uncovered the 24 GB database which is hosted by a Microsoft cloud server.
The database contains highly sensitive data that belongs to U.S peoples who are living in each household with their full names, their marital status, income bracket, age, and more.
This is not a first incident that related to the households data leak, two years back, a massive database that contains 123 Million American households sensitive personal information leaked online by California-based data analytics firm.
but this leak contains some of the depth information included peoples’ names, addresses, and income which is more valuable for cybercriminals if they reach this database.
According to vpnmentor report, The database seems to itemize households rather than individuals. It includes:
- Full addresses, including street addresses, cities, counties, states, and zip codes
- Exact longitude and latitude
- Full names, including first, last, and middle initial
- Age
- Date of birth
Apart from this, additionally the researches discovered coded references to title, gender, marital status, income, homeowner status, and dwelling type.
The personal data that exposed by this data leak leads to the victims falling in various cyber attacks including Spam and phishing that brings sophisticated attack via malware and ransomware.
“This made us suspect that the database is owned by insurance, healthcare, or mortgage company. However, information one may expect to find in a database owned by brokers or banks is missing. For example, there are no policy or account numbers, social security numbers, or payment types.” VPNMentor said.
Microsoft statement said, “We have notified the owner of the database and are taking appropriate steps to help the customer remove the data until it can be properly secured,” but Microsoft declined to reveal the customer of this unprotected database.
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