NEW YORK – Having to get a background check done is bad enough as it is but what if all of your personal and employment information was left exposed online for anyone to access? Well, that’s exactly what just happened for at least 100 million Americans.
Unlike with data breaches which are usually the work of hackers, data leaks occur when a company fails to properly secure the data points it has on customers or in this case, one third of the entire U.S. population.
As reported by Cybernews, its security researchers recently discovered a worrying data leak at a company called MC2 Data which operates a number of public record and background check sites including PrivateRecords.net, PrivateReports, PeopleSearcher, ThePeopleSearchers and PeopleSearch USA.
Here’s everything you need to know about this massive new data leak including all of the information that was exposed along with some tips and tricks to help keep you safe from hackers trying to use this leaked info in their attacks.
Just like with other past data leaks, this one was likely the result of human error instead of hackers. Cybernews’ research team found approximately 106,316,633 records or 2.2TB of data from MC2 Data was stored in a database without a password on August 7th. This could have allowed anyone on the internet to access and download this information, including hackers.
It’s estimated that at least 100 million U.S. citizens are affected by this data leak. However, the data of 2.3 million MC2 subscribers was also leaked as a result of this database being left unprotected online.
The leaked data includes the names, email addresses, IP addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, employment history, property records, legal records, employment history, encrypted passwords and even data on the families, relatives and neighbors of those affected. It appears that no financial information was leaked though.
