Researchers have discovered that the data of 10 million Chilean citizens has been leaked online, putting more than half of the country’s population at risk.
Experts from Cyber News say the data comes from Caja Los Andes, a company that provides Chileans with health insurance, loans, mortgages and pension funds.
It is the largest child benefit fund in Chile and employs nearly 3,000 people.
The fund was expected to have four million members by 2023, but the leaked dataset contained details of more than double that number. This suggests the database includes family members, people who have switched providers or people who may have died, Cybernews researchers explained.
“Leaked home addresses and financial data in a single breach makes these people vulnerable to targeted robberies or physical threats. Furthermore, they can become a prime target for scams and financial exploitation even without direct physical threats, as there is much more PII, such as email addresses, making this dataset a valuable target for phishing operations.”
The Apache Cassandra database leak is said to be due to a lack of authentication. According to Chilean data protection law, the company responsible for the leak of personal data could be subject to severe penalties, with fines of up to 4% of annual income and large-scale lawsuits from affected individuals.
Protecting Yourself
The news comes shortly after the reports about one of the largest data breaches in history left nearly three billion people vulnerable. Data breaches are all too common, and with so many different organizations holding everyone’s information, how can you keep your information safe?
Staying alert is the most important thing, especially being vigilant and changing your passwords often. For anyone worried about their information being exposed, Identity theft protection Dark web and credit monitoring plans ensure that you are immediately alerted to any vulnerabilities as they arise.