Journalists of Scripps News have found personal information of 170 thousand U.S. citizens on servers of telecommunications companies TerraCom and YourTel. The records contained data of the residents of more than 26 states. The leaked information consisted of Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home address and data about participation in government-assistance programs. Of those records, 343 were viewed by unknown, and potentially unauthorized individuals.
The journalists managed to find personal information of clients of the company through the simple Google search.
Scripps News immediately notified TerraCom and YourTel about the leak and within a few hours the records were no longer available to the public.
After the incident the companies stated that journalists hacked into their systems in order to access the data. According to representatives of the telecommunications companies, journalists allegedly used the program Wget.
Currently TerraCom and YourTel are investigating, but companies are already threatening journalists with civil action. According to them, Scripps News had no right to declare to report the exposure as a data breach without the necessary evidence.
