Unprotected Government Server Exposes Years of FBI Investigations

Jan 17, 2019

A massive government data belonging to the Oklahoma Department
of Securities (ODS) was left unsecured on a storage server for at
least a week, exposing a whopping 3 terabytes of data containing
millions of sensitive files.

The unsecured storage server, discovered by Greg Pollock,
a researcher with cybersecurity firm UpGuard, also contained
decades worth of confidential case files from the Oklahoma
Securities Commission and many sensitive FBI investigations—all
wide open and accessible to anyone without any password.

Other severe files exposed included emails, social security
numbers, names, and addresses of 10,000 brokers, credentials for
remote access to ODS workstations, and communications meant for the
Oklahoma Securities Commission, along with a list of identifiable
information related to AIDS patients.

While the researcher doesn’t know exactly how long the server was
open to the public, the Shodan search engine revealed that the
server had been publicly open since at least November 30, 2018,
almost a week after (on December 7) Pollock discovered it.

The UpGuard research team notified the ODS department the next
day, and the state agency removed ‘public access’ to the unsecured
pathway immediately after they were notified, though it is still
unclear whether anyone else accessed the unsecured server.

According to the security firm, such exposure could have a
“severe impact” on the department’s network integrity.

“By the best available measures of the files’ contents and
metadata, the data was generated over decades, with the oldest data
originating in 1986 and the most recent modified in 2016,” a
blog post
published on the UpGuard website reads.

“The data was exposed via an unsecured rsync service at an IP
address registered to the Oklahoma Office of Management and
Enterprise Services, allowing any user from any IP address to
download all the files stored on the server.”

^[1]

The firm also found passwords that could have allowed hackers to
remotely access the state agency’s workstations, and a spreadsheet
containing login information and passwords for several internet
services, including popular antivirus software.
In response to the incident, the Oklahoma Securities Commission
said in a press
release ^[2] published Wednesday that
an “accidental vulnerability” of limited duration was discovered
and immediately secured in the server and that the department is
taking the issue seriously and ordered a forensic
investigation.

“The Oklahoma Department of Securities (ODS) has initiated a
comprehensive review of the circumstances surrounding an incident
involving the inadvertent exposure of information during
installation of a firewall,” the Commission added.

“The ODS has notified law enforcement and OMES regarding the
incident. A forensic team is currently conducting an analysis to
determine the type and number of data files that may have been
exposed and who may have accessed them.”

The Commission also said the department is also exploring remedial
actions and notifications for anyone whose information may have
been exposed, and reviewing internal procedures, controls and
security measures to ensure such incidents can’t occur in the
future.

References

^{^}
blog post
(www.upguard.com)
^{^}
press release
(www.securities.ok.gov)

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OWASP TOP !0

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Unprotected Government Server Exposes Years of FBI Investigations

References

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