Data Breach Exposes Information Of Millions Of Verizon Customers

A data breach at Verizon has exposed the sensitive information of millions of customers. ZD Net reported:

"As many as 14 million records of subscribers who called the phone giant's customer services in the past six months were found on an unprotected Amazon S3 storage server controlled by an employee of NICE Systems, a Ra'anana, Israel-based company. The data was downloadable by anyone with the easy-to-guess web address."

Many businesses use cloud services vendors  -- Amazon Web Services and other vendors -- to outsource the storage of customers' information in online databases. While the practice isn't new, a problem is that customers aren't always informed of the business practice using their sensitive information.

Founded in 1986, NICE Systems has 3,500 employees, serves about 25,000 customers in 150 countries, and provides services to 85 percent of Fortune 100 companies. The exact number of affected Verizon customers is disputed.

The security firm Upguard found the unprotected cloud-based storage server:

"Upguard's Cyber Risk Team can now report that a mis-configured cloud-based file repository exposed the names, addresses, account details, and account personal identification numbers (PINs) of as many as 14 million US customers of telecommunications carrier Verizon, per analysis of the average number of accounts exposed per day in the sample that was downloaded. The cloud server was owned and operated by telephonic software and data firm NICE Systems, a third-party vendor for Verizon. (UPDATE: July 12, 3 PM PST - Both NICE Systems and Verizon have since confirmed the veracity of the exposure, while a Verizon spokesperson has claimed that only 6 million customers had data exposed)."

Whether the total number of breach victims is 6 or 14 million customers, neither is good. The phrase "account details" is troubling. That could mean anything from e-mail addresses to payment information to residential addresses, or more.

Upguard's announcement added:

"Beyond the risks of exposed names, addresses, and account information being made accessible via the S3 bucket’s URL, the exposure of Verizon account PIN codes used to verify customers, listed alongside their associated phone numbers, is particularly concerning. Possession of these account PIN codes could allow scammers to successfully pose as customers in calls to Verizon, enabling them to gain access to accounts—an especially threatening prospect, given the increasing reliance upon mobile communications for purposes of two-factor authentication.

Finally, this exposure is a potent example of the risks of third-party vendors handling sensitive data... Third-party vendor risk is business risk; sharing access to sensitive business data does not offload this risk, but merely extends it to the contracted partner, enabling cloud leaks to stretch across several continents and involve multiple enterprises."

Agreed. This outsourcing business practice may be profitable for all companies involved, but the outsourcing practice does not decrease the risks. Not good. Mis-configured cloud servers should not happen. Not good. The event raises the question: when has this happened before, but went undetected?

Verizon released a statement about the incident:

"... an employee of one of our vendors put information into a cloud storage area and incorrectly set the storage to allow external access. We have been able to confirm that the only access to the cloud storage area by a person other than Verizon or its vendor was a researcher who brought this issue to our attention. In other words, there has been no loss or theft of Verizon or Verizon customer information.

By way of background, the vendor was supporting an approved initiative to help us improve a residential and small business wireline self-service call center portal and required certain data for the project. The overwhelming majority of information in the data set had no external value, although there was a limited amount of personal information included, and in particular, there were no Social Security numbers or Verizon voice recordings in the cloud storage area.

To further clarify, the data supports a wireline portal and only includes a limited number of cell phone numbers for customer contact purposes. In addition, to the extent PINs were included in the data set, the PINs are used to authenticate a customer calling our wireline call center, but do not provide online access to customer accounts..."

Typically, after a breach companies hire independent security experts to investigate breaches and the contributing causes. Verizon's announcement did not state who, if anyone, it hired to perform a post-breach investigation nor when. So, according to Verizon: no big deal. No problem. Hmmmmm.

Reportedly, Upguard notified Verizon about the breach on June 13, and the breach was fixed on June 22. Upguard added:

"The long duration of time between the initial June 13th notification to Verizon by UpGuard of this data exposure, and the ultimate closure of the breach on June 22nd, is troubling."

Troubling, indeed. What took Verizon (and/or Nice Systems) so long? Verizon's statement didn't say. And what is Verizon (and/or NICE Systems) doing so this type of breach doesn't happen again? I look forward to upcoming explanations by both companies.

Readers: what are your opinions of this data breach? Of how long it took Verizon to fix things? Of the outsourcing practice? Verizon customers:

• Is Verizon doing enough to protect your sensitive data?
• Should affected customers be notified directly?
• Have you received a breach notice from Verizon? If so, share some of its details.