A Florida-Based Company Might've Just Accidentally Exposed The Personal Data Of Every Adult In The United States, Whoops!
Market Watch- A little-known Florida company may have exposed the personal data of nearly every American adult, according to a new report. Wired reported Wednesday that Exactis, a Palm Coast, Fla.-based marketing and data-aggregation company, had exposed a database containing almost 2 terabytes of data, containing nearly 340 million individual records, on a public server. That included records of 230 million consumers and 110 million businesses. “It seems like this is a database with pretty much every U.S. citizen in it,” security researcher Vinny Troia, who discovered the breach earlier this month, told Wired. “I don’t know where the data is coming from, but it’s one of the most comprehensive collections I’ve ever seen,” he said.
While the database apparently does not include credit-card numbers or Social Security numbers, it does include phone numbers, email and postal addresses as well as more than 400 personal characteristics, such as whether a person is a smoker, if they own a dog or cat, their religion and a multitude of personal interests. Even though no financial information was included, the breadth of personal data could make it possible to profile individuals or help scammers steal identities.
Whoops! That sounds not great. But you know what? I’m actually not worried about this. Ive decided to look at it in a positive way. It’s kinda like the old saying, “If everybody has AIDS then nobody has AIDS.” That’s how I’m approaching this potential leak of every single adult person’s personal data. Yeah all of our phone numbers and home addresses and e-mail address are out there for hackers to feast on but hey, at least we’re all in this together. In these trying times, we needed something to pull us all together. This just might be that thing. It’s not the most ideal thing but it’s something at least. All of our asses are in the jackpot now and it feels good to be a united nation once again.
Not to mention this means the chances that your personal information is used by hackers just decreased by a lot. That might not seem like the case but think about. Hackers now have like 400 million people to choose from. The odds they pick your identity to prey on is pretty small. They have literally everyone else to pick. And if they pick you, fuck it. We’re all gonna die some day. It’s gonna be fine probably.