Eight million files leaked from Elasticsearch database

Eight million files are on the street due to a configuration error in the Elasticsearch database of AavGo, a cloud-based software provider for the hotel industry. The misconfigured database contained information about hotel guests and internal files of hotels, reports SiliconAngle.

Daniel Brown, a WizCase security investigator, revealed millions of files in the database that were insufficiently secured. AavGo’s clients were not revealed, but according to the supplier’s website they include Best Western International, Crowne Plaza and Days Inn customers. The database was taken offline immediately after its discovery.

According to Brown, the cause of the lack of security of the database is a sloppy error: The reason is that an Elasticsearch engine was installed on this server that did not have any authentication mechanism activated. The server itself is directly accessible on the Internet, so the data was open to anyone to see this server contained logs of production systems, and thus a lot of sensitive information.

Previous problems with Elasticsearch

In January this year, another Elasticsearch database was discovered that was not properly configured. Approximately 24 million financial documents were exposed in a database used by Ascension, a data analysis company. Before that, in November, 57 million files were already on the street from a comparable database of Data & Leads Inc.

According to SiliconAngle, this type of data leakage is often caused by the fact that developers and engineers of cloud services such as AavGo’s often work too quickly. As a result, crucial steps in security can be forgotten, says Chris DeRamus, chief technology officer at cybersecurity company DivvyCloud Corp.: Leaving servers unprotected seems easy to avoid, but more and more companies are dealing with data leaks as a result of misconfigurations, and we read about it almost every day in the news. The truth is that organizations lack the right tools to consistently identify and resolve unsafe software configurations and implementations.