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Breach in the News
Introduction
Due to their potential to expose sensitive information and facilitate a variety of forms of
exploitation, data breaches have become a major cause for concern in recent years especially
with the development of technology and the sudden rise in cyber-attacks in the last few years.
One such occurrence of data breach is the exposure of a vast database containing real state
ownership information. This data breach affected millions of individuals including but not
limited to renown celebrities, politicians, and invested citizens. This report will provide an
analysis of the data breach. This breach occurred as a result of the targeted database being non-
protected and not having a password securing it properly from outside access. This database
belonged to New York-based Real Estate Wealth Network (REWN). This report will inspect
the nature of the breach, the likely consequences resulting from the breach, and recommended
measures to mitigate risks and better avoid such attack in the future.
Description of Data Breach
The data breach in question resolved around a non-password protected database with
approximately 1.5 billion records all together making a total of 1.16 terabytes of data being
exposed during this attack. The database was properly separated into folders providing enough
guidance for the attackers to know exactly where to look for everything. The known folders
included property history, sellers, bankruptcy, tax-links, HOA links, inheritance, legal issues, etc.
In addition to what appeared to be internal user logging data, these folders contained sensitive
information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, downloaded files, and many more for
each property that the attackers had access to.
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Extent and Scope of Data Breach
The extent and scope of the data breach were significant and extensive encompassing a
wide range of people and data. This breach had the potential to impact close to 20% of the
population which makes it a very serious offense and one that could lead to catastrophic
consequences. Considering this breach had the ability to affect more than one demographic of
people including people who are very influential in the current world state such as celebrities
underlines its global implications. Furthermore considering that this breach affected the real
estate business, a very significant sector of the economy in the current world marketplace, the
potential of misuse that unauthorized access to this information has can be seen has
internationally critical.
Root Causes of Data Breach
The root causes of this data breach are:
The database was non-password protected which can be categorized as lack of proper
access controls which indicates a lack of access controls established for access to the
database and lack of security measures for recognition of who is gaining access to the
data.
The data should have been stored in a more secure manner, suggesting inadequate data
security practice in place. This data not having basic security in place such as encryption
and access control made it even easier for an attacker to work his way to the actual data
being stored.
Although it is not known long the attacker had access to the database before it was
discovered, the absence of proper security resulted in the inability of the security system
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in place at the time of the attack to detect the exposure. This allowed exposure to persist
unnoticed.
Potential Risks and Consequences
Considering the data exposed was essential crucial, having that data accessible to a
malicious third party poses several potential risks.
The people affected by this breach are at risk of personal safety or invasion of privacy,
especially celebrities because of the public availability of their home addresses and
personal information.
The data exposed during the breach can also be used for identity theft and financial due to
the fact that the affected people have their tax ID and criminal records exposed to
unknown people.
Criminals could use the exposed data to engage in property and mortgage fraud which
could lead to unauthorized sales being performed using other people information.
The exposed data can also be used as an advantage to perform social engineering attacks.
Recommendation for Prevention and Mitigation
Implement more robust secure access controls by setting up security rules and adding
password protection with multi-factor authentication.
Encrypt sensitive data at all times to prevent unauthorized access.
Implement a continuous monitoring and detection system to help identify unusual activity
and detect problems ahead of time.
Adopt responsible data handling protocols within your organization to prevent such data
breaches again.
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Reference
Fowler, J. (2023, December 26). 1.5 billion records leaked in Real Estate Wealth Network Data
breach. Security Info Watch.
https://www.securityinfowatch.com/cybersecurity/article/53081265/15-billion-records-
leaked-in-real-estate-wealth-network-data-breach
Kanamugire, J. (n.d.). A Case Study: Real Estate Wealth Network Data Breach. Research Gate.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337916068_A_Case_Study_Analysis_of_the_Eq
uifax_Data_Breach_1_A_Case_Study_Analysis_of_the_Equifax_Data_Breach
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