Researchers have discovered a misconfigured database containing 18GB of information, including 20.8 million personal records. Most of the individuals affected are in Ecuador, which to put the leak into context, has a population of only 16.6 million; 6.7 million are children.
The difference between the number of records and Ecuador's population can be attributed to duplicate and older information, which includes data of deceased individuals. Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, both researchers with vpnMentor, discovered the unprotected database on an Elasticsearch server, which appear to be owned by Ecuadorian consulting company Novaestrat.
It seems the database held information pulled from outside sources including Ecuadorian government registries, the Aeade automotive association, and the Biess Ecuadorian bank. Data taken from both public sources and private databases was collected in the unsecured database.
Researchers unearthed a range of personal data belonging to Ecuadorian citizens: full name, gender, birthdate, place of birth, home and email address, phone numbers (work, home, and mobile), marital status, level of education, date of marriage, and date of death, if applicable. Individuals are identified by a ten-digit national identification number called a "cédula."
An investigation to validate the data led researchers to financial data linked to accounts held with Biess, including account status, balance, credit type, amount financed, and the location and contact information for the person's local Biess branch, vpnMentor explains in a blog post.
What the team found particularly concerning is the extent of detailed family information stored in the database. Researchers were able to view the full names of the mother, father, and spouse, as w ..
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