All news in category "Incidents and Data Breaches"

GoDaddy AWS Configuration Data Exposed in Public S3

🔓 The UpGuard Cyber Risk Team discovered a publicly accessible Amazon S3 bucket that contained detailed configuration spreadsheets appearing to describe GoDaddy infrastructure running in the AWS cloud. The files included over 24,000 hostnames and 41 configuration fields per system, plus modeled financials and apparent AWS discounting—information useful for targeted attacks or competitive intelligence. GoDaddy closed the exposure after notification; no credentials were found, but the incident highlights the severe consequences of cloud misconfiguration at scale.

Exposed NGA Data Linked to Booz Allen S3 Misconfiguration

🛡️ UpGuard analyst Chris Vickery discovered a publicly exposed S3 file repository containing credentials and SSH keys tied to systems used by US geospatial intelligence contractors. The plaintext data included access tokens and administrative credentials that could enable entry to systems handling Top Secret-level data. NGA secured the bucket rapidly after notification; Booz Allen Hamilton responded later. UpGuard preserved the dataset at government request.

ISP Exposes Administrative Credentials via S3 Misconfig

🔓On October 11, 2018 UpGuard discovered that an Amazon S3 bucket named "pinapp2" exposed 73 GB of data belonging to Pocket iNet. The downloadable "tech" folder contained plaintext administrative passwords, AWS secret keys, network configuration files, inventory lists, and photographs of hardware and towers. Pocket iNet was notified the same day and secured the exposure on October 19, 2018. The incident highlights how misconfigured S3 ACLs and poor credential hygiene can place critical infrastructure at risk.

Spartan Technology S3 Exposure of South Carolina Arrests

🔒 UpGuard Research discovered a publicly accessible AWS S3 bucket containing roughly 60 GB of MSSQL backups uploaded by a Spartan Technology employee, exposing South Carolina justice-system records spanning 2008–2018. The dataset included about 5.2 million arrest-event rows, tens of millions of related records, and sensitive PII such as names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and roughly 17,000 Social Security numbers. Permissions included the "AuthenticatedUsers" group, enabling broad access; Spartan removed public access the same day after notification.

Open rsync Repository Exposes 42,000+ Patients' Records

🔒 UpGuard discovered a publicly accessible rsync repository tied to Cohen Bergman Klepper Romano Mds PC that exposed records for more than 42,000 patients and over three million medical notes. The exposed data included patient and physician names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, phone numbers, email and insurance information, along with an Outlook .pst and a virtual hard drive containing staff home addresses and family details. UpGuard notified the affected parties and Accenture, and the repository was secured after follow-up, underscoring failures in basic access controls and the need for faster remediation.

Marketing PR Platform Exposed Data of Hundreds of Thousands

🔓 UpGuard identified an Amazon S3 bucket tied to iPR Software that publicly exposed over a terabyte of files, including a 17 GB MongoDB backup. The collection contained 477,000 media contacts, approximately 35,000 hashed passwords, client marketing assets, internal PR strategy documents, and credentials for Google, Twitter, and a MongoDB host. UpGuard notified iPR in October 2019; public access was removed in late November after follow-up and media engagement.

LocalBlox S3 Misconfiguration Exposes 48M Records Publicly

🔓 UpGuard discovered an Amazon S3 bucket owned by LocalBlox that was publicly accessible, exposing a 1.2 TB ndjson archive containing approximately 48 million personal profiles. The dataset aggregated names, addresses, dates of birth, scraped LinkedIn and Facebook content, Twitter handles, and other identifiers used to build psychographic profiles. UpGuard notified LocalBlox and the bucket was secured on February 28, 2018. The incident highlights how a simple cloud misconfiguration can compromise consumer privacy and enable targeted influence at scale.

AggregateIQ: Exposed Targeting Tools 'Monarch' and Saga

🔍 AggregateIQ's public repository exposed sophisticated ad and tracking tools linked to political campaigns. The Saga suite automates Facebook ad scraping, performance reconciliation, and asset backup, while Monarch provides pixel-based tracking (Jewel, Peasant) and a microservice stack (Peon) for event ingestion and enrichment. The codebase included credentials and configs enabling fine-grained targeting, though working user datasets were not present. The exposure raises significant privacy and electoral concerns.

Medcall S3 Misconfiguration Exposed Medical Records

🔓 UpGuard disclosed that an unsecured Medcall Healthcare Advisors Amazon S3 bucket exposed roughly 7 GB of sensitive information, including PDF intake forms, CSV files containing full Social Security numbers, and 715 recorded patient-doctor and operator calls. The bucket was publicly readable and writable with an 'Everyone - Full Control' ACL and was taken offline after UpGuard notified Medcall. The case underscores the danger of vendor misconfiguration and third-party exposure of protected health information.

Election Systems & Software Exposed 1.8M Chicago Voters

🔓The database of Omaha-based voting machine vendor Election Systems & Software was left publicly accessible on an Amazon S3 bucket, exposing records for 1.864 million Chicago voters. The exposed MSSQL backups included names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers. UpGuard discovered the open bucket on Aug 11, 2017 and notified ES&S, which closed access the next day.

Public S3 Exposure Reveals Sensitive Customer Data at NCF

🔓 On October 3, 2017 UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery discovered a publicly accessible Amazon S3 bucket belonging to National Credit Federation containing 111 GB of internal and customer records. The repository included scanned IDs, Social Security card images, full credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, personalized credit blueprints, and full bank and card numbers. National Credit Federation secured the bucket after notification and UpGuard found no evidence of theft in this report. The case underscores the necessity of validating cloud storage permissions and continuously monitoring third-party risk.

Robotics Vendor Exposed Sensitive Manufacturing Data

🔓 Level One Robotics left 157 GB of sensitive customer, employee, and corporate files accessible via an unrestricted rsync server, exposing CAD drawings, factory layouts, robotic configurations, NDAs, identity documents, and banking records for over 100 manufacturing clients. UpGuard discovered the exposure on July 1, 2018 and began outreach on July 5; after contact on July 9, Level One remediated the server by July 10. The incident underscores third- and fourth-party supply-chain risk and the need to restrict file-transfer services by IP and authentication, enforce vendor security standards, and maintain rapid exposure-response procedures.

LA County 211 Data Exposure: Emergency Call Records

🔒 The UpGuard Cyber Risk Team discovered an Amazon S3 bucket for LA County 211 that was publicly accessible and contained Postgres backups and CSV exports with sensitive data. A 1.3GB t_contact export included millions of records, roughly 200,000 detailed call notes and 33,000 Social Security numbers, alongside 384 user accounts with MD5-hashed passwords. The exposure dated from 2010–2016; UpGuard notified the service in March–April 2018 and confirmed the bucket was closed within 24 hours of contact.

HCL Exposed New-Hire Passwords and Project Reports

🔓 In May 2019 UpGuard researchers discovered publicly accessible HCL pages that exposed personal information, plaintext passwords for new hires, and detailed project reports. The data was dispersed across multiple subdomains and web UIs, including HR dashboards, recruiting approval panels, and a SmartManage reporting interface. After notifying HCL's Data Protection Officer, the researcher confirmed the anonymous-access pages were taken offline within days. The incident underscores the risk of misconfigured application pages and the importance of clear reporting channels and prompt incident response.

AggregateIQ Repositories Expose Multiple Brexit Sites

📂 UpGuard's analysis of exposed development repositories from AggregateIQ details source code, backups, and credentials tied to multiple pro-Brexit organizations. The findings show WordPress backups, API keys, Stripe secrets, and scripts used to build and contact supporter lists, with administrative accounts linking AIQ staff to sites such as Vote Leave, Change Britain, and the DUP. Misuse of the exposed assets could have allowed large-scale data access or payment compromise.

Amazon Engineer Exposed Credentials via Public GitHub Repo

🔒 UpGuard discovered a public GitHub repository on 13 January 2020 containing an Amazon Web Services engineer’s personal identity documents and numerous system credentials. The repository included AWS key pairs (including a file named rootkey.csv), API tokens, private keys, passwords, logs, and customer-related templates. UpGuard reported the exposure to AWS Security within hours and the repository was secured the same day. The incident highlights how rapid leak detection can prevent accidental disclosures from escalating.

Medico Inc. S3 Misconfiguration Exposes Patient Data

🔓 Medico Inc. left an Amazon S3 bucket publicly accessible, exposing nearly 14,000 documents (approximately 1.7GB) that included medical records, insurance claims, legal files, and internal business data. The UpGuard Data Breach Research Team discovered the bucket on June 20, 2019, and Medico closed it within hours after notification. The dataset contained unredacted PII such as SSNs, bank account numbers, and payment card data, and also included plaintext credentials that could enable further compromise.

Viacom Cloud Leak Exposed Master Controls and Keys

🔒 UpGuard researchers discovered on August 30, 2017 a publicly accessible Amazon S3 bucket named “mcs-puppet” containing seventy-two .tgz backup archives that included Puppet manifests, configuration files, keys, and credentials tied to Viacom. The repository exposed AWS access and secret keys, GPG decryption keys, and scripts referencing services such as Docker, Jenkins, Splunk, and New Relic. UpGuard notified Viacom on August 31, and the exposure was secured within hours. The incident demonstrates how cloud misconfigurations can reveal master provisioning controls and enable widespread infrastructure compromise.

AggregateIQ GitLab Leak Reveals Political Targeting Tools

🔓 The UpGuard Cyber Team discovered a publicly accessible GitLab repository belonging to AggregateIQ that exposed code, tools, and credentials used in political data operations. The leak includes an apparent campaign platform called Ripon, state configuration files, voicemail scripts, and integrations for services like Twilio and Facebook. Exposed keys, tokens, and AWS credentials raise risks of misuse and highlight ties between AIQ and Cambridge Analytica that warrant further investigation.

Neoclinical Database Exposed Sensitive Health Data

🔒 UpGuard researchers discovered a publicly accessible MongoDB database belonging to Neoclinical, exposing profiles for 37,170 users in Australia and New Zealand. Records included names, contact details, geocoordinates, dates of birth and structured health-screening answers that revealed diagnoses and treatments. UpGuard notified the company and AWS; access was removed on July 26. The exposure underscores the need for proper access controls and rapid incident response.