2016 Postmortem

insta8er

(960 posts) Wed Jun 22, 2016, 05:40 PM Jun 2016

Database error leaves 150 million voter records exposed online

More than 150 million U.S. voter records were available publicly due to a misconfigured database, a data firm confirmed Wednesday — the second such accidental exposure of voter data in six months.

The records were compiled by the voter information brokerage L2, but were not leaked by L2. Chris Vickery, a security researcher at MacKeeper, said the data was being hosted on a Google cloud account. The data has since been taken down.

“When I called L2, I told them that someone was giving their data away for free,” said Vickery. “They were pretty quickly able to tell who the client was.”

Visible data included names, addresses, political preferences, and opinions on issues including same-sex marriage and gun control. In total, there were 326 gigabytes of sensitive data improperly being handled online.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/284519-database-error-leaves-150-million-voter-records-exposed-online

5 replies

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Highlight:

Database error leaves 150 million voter records exposed online (Original Post) insta8er Jun 2016 OP

"compiled by the voter information brokerage" - so these were records that were sold to a client. PoliticAverse Jun 2016 #1

Internet accessed Cloud Storage is one of the most insecure mediums-Indemnity Insurance is Required. TheBlackAdder Jun 2016 #2

And, my company is moving credit card info to the cloud! scscholar Jun 2016 #3

If it's an internal cloud, no problems. Once it leaves your data center, the NSA also snapshots it. TheBlackAdder Jun 2016 #5

If you've ever voted in an internet poll, MineralMan Jun 2016 #4

PoliticAverse

(26,366 posts)

1. "compiled by the voter information brokerage" - so these were records that were sold to a client.

Reply to insta8er (Original post)

Wed Jun 22, 2016, 05:43 PM

Jun 2016

I wonder how much they paid for them.

TheBlackAdder

(29,101 posts)

2. Internet accessed Cloud Storage is one of the most insecure mediums-Indemnity Insurance is Required.

Reply to insta8er (Original post)

Wed Jun 22, 2016, 06:14 PM

Jun 2016

.

It's not about if your data gets stolen, but when and how often.

.

scscholar

(2,902 posts)

3. And, my company is moving credit card info to the cloud!

Reply to TheBlackAdder (Reply #2)

Wed Jun 22, 2016, 06:36 PM

Jun 2016

I'm very afraid.

TheBlackAdder

(29,101 posts)

5. If it's an internal cloud, no problems. Once it leaves your data center, the NSA also snapshots it.

Reply to scscholar (Reply #3)

Thu Jun 23, 2016, 01:04 AM

Jun 2016

.

Indemnity insurance, so when the records are compromised, there's some protection.

But, the damage done to good will and trust is incalculable.

.

MineralMan

(148,150 posts)

4. If you've ever voted in an internet poll,

Reply to insta8er (Original post)

Wed Jun 22, 2016, 06:59 PM

Jun 2016

signed an online petition, donated to a political cause or registered on some political website with your informatiin, your information is probably in there. In fact, we're probably all in there. So what?

They don't have info that enables identity theft or a thing like that, so who cares? You'll just get some more spam.

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