The humongous collection of extensive personal details about millions of people could be a gold mine for scam artists
Almost every single citizen of Ecuador, a country of some 16.6 million people, is believed to have been affected by a new massive data leak, reads a report from vpnMentor.
Two weeks ago, the firm discovered a misconfigured Elasticsearch server that was packed with personal data on most of Ecuador’s citizens, including children. The server – which is hosted in Miami but is believed to be owned by an Ecuadorean consulting company called Novaestrat – was left unsecured for an unknown period of time.
The cache of data weighed in at 18 gigabytes and comprised various personal details, including full names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, ID numbers, family information, financial details, and car registration numbers. As many as 20 million individuals may be impacted, said the researchers, although this count includes duplicate records and records for deceased people.
The leak was eventually plugged on September 11th, but not until Ecuador’s Computer Emergency Response Team (EcuCERT) had to step in. Per ZDNet, which got the scoop on and examined the leak, Novaestrat initially took no action to secure it.
Meanwhile, Ecuador’s telecommunications ministry said (in Spanish) that Novaestrat had obtained the data in an illegal manner. In fact, the country’s interior minister María Paula Romo announced that the firm‘s managing director, identified as William Roberto G., had been deta ..
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