Sweden accidentally leaked personal details of its citizens

It is no less than a shock that after every short period there is another data breach. This time it happened in Sweden as the sensitive data of millions of transporters got exposed. This is reported to be the massive data breach in Sweden at the Swedish Transport Agency.

It happened because of the mishandling of an outsourcing deal with IBM. This mistake leads to the leak of the private data about every vehicle in the state including the ones that were used by military and the police of the country. The breach exposed the names, photos, and addresses of millions of Swedish citizens. Not only the citizens’ information was revealed but it also exposed information of the fighter pilots of the country, members of the military’s most secretive units, individuals under witness relocation program, police suspects, and many more.

The reason for this breach is that in 2015, the Swedish Transport Agency handed over IBM an IT maintenance contract to manage the data bases and networks. For the purpose, the Swedish Transport Agency uploaded IBM’s complete database into the cloud servers. This included all the information of the police and military registrations as well as individuals on witness protection programs. All the information was revealed in clear text messages.

According to the administrators, the leak exposed every conceivable top secret database including SEAL team operators, fighter pilots, police suspects, as well as people under witness relocation. The leak exposed the following

It revealed the weight capacity of all roads and bridges

Revealed every information about fighter pilots in the Air Force

Names, photographs, and home addresses of every person in police register which were supposed to be confidential.

Names, photos, and residential addresses of operators in military units

Names, photos, and addresses of people included in the witness relocation program whose identities were protected for some reasons.

In all the military and government vehicles, the models, weight, and type were revealed.

Although the authorities started investigating the issue in 2016 which in August 2017 led to the fire of STA director director-general Maria Agren. After being fined with a half month’s pay, Agren was found guilty of being careless with the keeping of secret information.

Via: The Hacker News