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19/05/25/180242 story

Security Gap Leaves 885 Million Mortgage Documents Exposed

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday May 26 2019, @09:06AM   
from the oops dept.

AnonTechie writes:

First American Financial Corporation, a provider of title insurance, said Friday that it had fixed a vulnerability in its website that exposed 885 million records related to mortgage deals going back 16 years.

The vulnerability would have allowed anyone to gain access to Social Security numbers, bank account details, drivers license and mortgage and tax records.

The security failure was first reported by Brian Krebs, the cybersecurity writer who last year reported a flaw in the way Facebook was storing hundreds of millions of user passwords.

First American, based in Santa Ana, Calif., said in a statement Friday afternoon that it addressed the security gap after it was notified by Mr. Krebs. "We are currently evaluating what effect, if any, this had on the security of customer information," the company's statement said. "We will have no further comment until our internal review is completed."

The incident was the latest example of an under-the-radar company that retained enormous amounts of sensitive personal and financial data but was not effectively protecting that information.

Security Gap Leaves 885 Million Mortgage Documents Exposed

Additional Coverage:

Krebs on Security

The Verge

USA TODAY

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Original Submission

• Wrong DepartmentWrong Department (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @10:15AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @10:15AM (#847853)

  This should be under the "modus operandi" department.

  • No regulations.
  • No repercussions.
  • No responsibility.
  • No accountability.
  • No nothing.

  • Re:Wrong Department(Score: 5, Insightful) by agr on Sunday May 26 2019, @12:05PM

    by agr (7134) on Sunday May 26 2019, @12:05PM (#847870)

    It’s long past time to ban the practice of using Social Security numbers as authentication secrets. They have been compromised too many times in too many ways.

    Parent

• Title insurance is a scamTitle insurance is a scam (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @12:17PM (2 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @12:17PM (#847872)

  Why would key property data management be outsourced if it leads to this?

  • Re:Title insurance is a scam(Score: 3, Funny) by NateMich on Sunday May 26 2019, @03:08PM

    by NateMich (6662) on Sunday May 26 2019, @03:08PM (#847898)

    Why would key property data management be outsourced if it leads to this?

    Is this a trick question?

    Parent

  • Re:Title insurance is a scam(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @03:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 26 2019, @03:35PM (#847903)

    Not a scam, but necessary because another way America is a screwup country.

    Parent

• "We are currently evaluating what effect, if any"(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @05:15AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @05:15AM (#848103)

  Love the attitude, they really seem to have learned from this.