"Over 750,000 Applications For US Birth Certificate Copies Exposed Online"

A U.K.-based penetration testing company Fidus Information Security found more than 752,000 applications for copies of birth certificates on an Amazon Web Services (AWS) storage bucket. The bucket discovered also had 90,400 death certificate applications, but these could not be accessed or downloaded. TechCrunch verified the data by matching names and addresses against public records. An online company that allows users to obtain a copy of their birth and death certificates from U.S. state governments is responsible for the exposed massive cache of applications. The bucket wasn’t protected with a password, allowing anyone who knew the easy-to-guess web address access to the data. The applications dated back to late-2017, and the bucket was updating daily. In one week, the company added about 9,000 applications to the bucket. Fidus Information Security and TechCrunch have warned the online company, Amazon, and the local data protection authority of the security lapse.

TechCrunch reports: "Over 750,000 Applications For US Birth Certificate Copies Exposed Online"