UpGuard research found a trove of sensitive information in an exposed Elastic database. Getting to the bottom of what it meant led us down an interesting path.
The article says more clearly “2.7 billion records with Social Security numbers.” The author goes on to say he found 4 records with a friend’s data but in those 4 records were 3 different SSNs. He called the friend and confirmed that one of them was his actual SSN. I guess someone was auto-linking names and SSNs for ID theft purposes and getting it wrong sometimes.
The article says more clearly “2.7 billion records with Social Security numbers.” The author goes on to say he found 4 records with a friend’s data but in those 4 records were 3 different SSNs. He called the friend and confirmed that one of them was his actual SSN. I guess someone was auto-linking names and SSNs for ID theft purposes and getting it wrong sometimes.