Major email marketing organization accidentally exposes over billion people's data

Synopsis

Described at the time it was disclosed (March 2017) as the largest single data breach in history.

In January 2017, the email marketing organisation discovered 1.34 billion records had been compromised. This data breach was discovered by the efforts of a security researcher and it was claimed was due to an error setting up a backup. The records largely consisted of email addresses, but some of the entries had additional details like IP addresses, names and physical addresses.

The company filed a lawsuit against the researcher in May 2017 alleging that the researcher "perpetrated a coordinated, months-long cyberattack against River City and its principals".

Analyst

Courtenay Brammar

Experienced global enterprise risk and governance professional. Previously Vice President at Morgan Stanley, Deloitte Risk Advisory practitioner and PRMIA steering committee member in both London and New York.

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