Millions of Chinese citizen IDs exposed by online store
Millions of Chinese citizens have had their sensitive data exposed online thanks to yet another unprotected database.
Cybersecurity researchers at CloudDefense.ai recently reported that they found a large database generated by Zhefengle, a Chinese e-commerce store that focuses on importing products from abroad.
The database contained 3.3 million orders from Zhefengle customers between 2015 and 2020. In some cases, the data includes shipping addresses and phone numbers, and in others even copies of government-issued identification cards.
Unsecured databases
When importing products from abroad, Chinese citizens are sometimes asked to verify their identity, TechCrunch reports, adding that the practice of requiring a copy of the ID card to be uploaded was “not uncommon.”
The database was not password protected, so anyone who knew the IP address could have easily accessed it. At the time of writing, it was not known whether malicious actors had discovered the database before the researchers, or if it was already being used in phishing attacks or identity theft.
We do know that the owners closed it down shortly afterwards. In response to the publication, the store owners said: “The vulnerability was quickly resolved. We are currently investigating the cause internally.”
Unsecured databases are one of the most common ways sensitive data ends up online. In early October this year, researchers found a Real Simple Systems database that tracked personally identifiable and sensitive information about hundreds of thousands of people.
A month earlier, in September, Microsoft was caught with the same flaw, when Wiz found a large Microsoft Azure cloud storage database that contained, among other things, private keys and passwords. The database was owned by Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) researchers and was reportedly 38 TB in size.
In May, Toyota was discovered to be maintaining an unsecured database of 2.15 million users. “It was discovered that some of the data that Toyota Motor Corporation entrusted to Toyota Connected Corporation was exposed due to a misconfiguration of the cloud environment,” the company said at the time.