One Arrested in Ecuador's Mega Data Leak

An arrest has been made following the disclosure of a massive data leak affecting most of Ecuador's population. Officials have confirmed the arrest of William Roberto G, manager of Ecuadorian consulting firm Novaestrat, which owned the unsecured Elasticsearch server.

Earlier this week, researchers shared the discovery of a misconfigured database containing 18GB of information, including 20.8 million personal records. Most of the data belonged to individuals in Ecuador, a country with a population of only 16.6 million. Information exposed included full name, birthdate, gender, place of birth, home and email addresses, phone numbers, marital status, level of education, date of marriage, and date of death, if applicable.

An investigation is now underway. Ecuadorian officials seized electronic equipment, storage devices, and documentation during a raid at Roberto's home; he has been taken to Quito for questioning. Officials plan to use the data collected on Novaestrat's business processes and relationships to further its investigation, they said in a statement. The government has also confirmed plans to pass a Law on Protection of Personal Data to protect citizens' information.

Read more details here.

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