Security News > 2020 > June > Keepnet kerfuffle: Firing legal threats at bloggers did infosec biz more damage than its exposed database

UK-based infosec outfit Keepnet Labs left an 867GB database of previously compromised website login details accessible to world+dog earlier this year - then sent lawyers' letters to bloggers in a bid to erase their reports of its blunder.

As reported by news website Verdict, Keepnet was stung by Diachenko's initial post about the gaffe, which Keepnet interpreted as the blogger blaming the business for leaking its own customers' data - none of its own clients' data was exposed, but rather info from previous publicly known database exposures.

"As part of the Keepnet Labs Solution, we provide a 'compromised email credentials' threat intelligence service. To provide this service, we are continuously collecting publicly known data-breach data from online public resources. We then store this data in our own secure Elasticsearch database and provide companies with the information relating to their business email domains via our Keepnet platform," the firm insisted.

Whether the Elasticsearch database truly was exposed for just 10 minutes as Keepnet claimed, and whether those 10 minutes were long enough for it to be indexed, that index to be seeded through BinaryEdge, Diachenko to notice the new result, click around as required, download 2MB of it, inspect the download and then figure out who owned the database, is all moot.

An unrepentant Keepnet said in its statement: "We have been working over the past few months to get in contact with the authors of posts who have shared inaccurate aspects of this story and have politely asked them to update their articles," which is a funny way of saying "Hired a lawyer to threaten a defamation lawsuit unless the posts were deleted." This was only ever going to produce one result, and not the one Keepnet wanted.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/06/10/keepnet_data_breach_kerfuffle/