Newly Revealed Exactis Data Leak Bigger Than Equifax's

Marketing data firm left its massive database open to the Internet.

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What happens when you leave a database filled with personal information open to the Internet? People find it: That's what happened to marketing data firm Exactis with its database of information on roughly 340 million people.

Security researcher Vinnie Troia of Night Lion Security discovered the database through a Shodan search. Exactis is a marketing data company that provides companies with the sort of information needed to target ads to people browsing the Web.

Troia told Wired, "It seems like this is a database with pretty much every US citizen in it," adding, "I don't know where the data is coming from, but it's one of the most comprehensive collections I've ever seen."

While the data did not include credit card or social security numbers, it did include everything from political preferences to browsing and purchase data for a wide variety of items. Taken together, the pieces of information would allow an advertiser or database user to form a very detailed picture of the targeted individual.

"The data reported to have been leaked is incredibly comprehensive and can be used by hackers to develop more targeted phishing scams," said John "Lex" Robinson, cybersecurity strategist at Cofense. "Phishing is a serious threat because it works, with personalized phish often making their way past stacks of expensive technology layers and email gateways to land in an unsuspecting user's inbox."

In terms of size, the Exactis leak dwarfs the Equifax breach, which exposed nearly 146 million records. Exactis has now taken the database off the public Internet, but has made no public statement on the affair. At the time of this article's publication, the company's website was down, with a request returning a 508 error.

For more, read here and here.

About the Author

Curtis Franklin, Principal Analyst, Omdia

Curtis Franklin Jr. is Principal Analyst at Omdia, focusing on enterprise security management. Previously, he was senior editor of Dark Reading, editor of Light Reading's Security Now, and executive editor, technology, at InformationWeek, where he was also executive producer of InformationWeek's online radio and podcast episodes

Curtis has been writing about technologies and products in computing and networking since the early 1980s. He has been on staff and contributed to technology-industry publications including BYTE, ComputerWorld, CEO, Enterprise Efficiency, ChannelWeb, Network Computing, InfoWorld, PCWorld, Dark Reading, and ITWorld.com on subjects ranging from mobile enterprise computing to enterprise security and wireless networking.

Curtis is the author of thousands of articles, the co-author of five books, and has been a frequent speaker at computer and networking industry conferences across North America and Europe. His most recent books, Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center, and Securing the Cloud: Security Strategies for the Ubiquitous Data Center, with co-author Brian Chee, are published by Taylor and Francis.

When he's not writing, Curtis is a painter, photographer, cook, and multi-instrumentalist musician. He is active in running, amateur radio (KG4GWA), the MakerFX maker space in Orlando, FL, and is a certified Florida Master Naturalist.

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