Researchers have discovered that the data of 10 million Chilean citizens has been leaked online in an exposure that puts more than half of the country's population at risk.
Experts from Cyber News The data is said to come from Caja Los Andes, a company that offers Chileans health insurance, loans, mortgages and pension funds.
It is the largest Family Allowance Compensation company in Chile and employs around 3,000 people.
The fund was reported to have four million members by 2023, but the leaked dataset contained details of more than double that number. This suggests the database includes family members, people who have changed providers, or people who may have died, Cybernews researchers explained.
“Having both home addresses and financial data leaked in a single breach makes these individuals vulnerable to targeted theft or physical threats. What’s more, they could become prime targets for scams and financial exploitation even without direct physical threats, as there is so much more personally identifiable information, such as email addresses, that this data set is a valuable target for phishing operations.”
The Apache Cassandra database leak is believed to have been caused by a lack of authentication. Under Chilean data protection legislation, the company responsible for the personal data leak could be subject to severe sanctions, with fines of up to 4% of its annual revenue and large-scale lawsuits by those affected.
Protecting yourself
The news comes shortly after one of the largest data breaches in history was reported, leaving nearly three billion people vulnerable. Data breaches are all too common, and with so many different organisations holding everyone’s information, how can you keep your information safe?
The most important thing is to stay alert, especially to be vigilant and change passwords frequently. For anyone concerned about their information being exposed, Identity theft protection Plans with dark web monitoring and credit monitoring ensure you are aware of any vulnerabilities as soon as they arise.
