Unprotected server exposes 1.2 billion records of confidential data

Security researchers have discovered a flaw in an unprotected server that exposed 1.2 billion records of personal data.

According to Cnet, the unprotected Elasticsearch server exposed records including email addresses, employers, locations, job titles, names, phone numbers and social media profiles.

The exposed data included an index sourced from data enrichment company People Data Labs (PDL) and contained 622 million unique email addresses. However, PDL did not own the server and it is likely that a customer failed to properly secure the database.