Verizon data breach: 6M users' data leaked online

Millions of Verizon customer data records have been leaked online, according to a ZDNet report. Reportedly, data of "as many as 14 million" Verizon customers was readily available to download after an employee at Nice Systems left them on an unsecured Amazon server.

Each record included customer's name, mobile number, and account PIN along with their home address, email id, and Verizon account balance which is enough for anyone to access an individual's account even if the account is protected by two-factor authentication. CNN reports that the records were exposed due to a misconfigured security setting on the server. So anyone who knew the web address could download the files.

While exposed PIN codes could be a concern, Verizon said that the PINs that were available during the breach aren't actually linked to customer accounts but rather were numbers used to authenticate customers at call centers.

Verizon and Nice Systems are investigating the data breach. A Nice spokesperson said that the data was part of the demo system. Nice Systems had access to the information in order to improve customer experience by listening to customer call records. The phone giant said that majority of the information in the data has no external value.

Chris Vickery, a researcher with cybersecurity firm UpGuard, first noticed the breach on June 13th and privately informed Verizon. The data was finally secured on June 22nd, nine days later. The security breach comes a year after Verizon said the contact information of 1.5 million business customers was for sale by hackers.