14 DAY TRIAL // Over 400,000 records, including 17,0000 phone call recordings have been leaked online by VICI Marketing, a Florida marketing company, in what seems to be a security blunder. The recordings include names, addresses, phone numbers and credit card information, which translates into a heap of danger for the people at the other end of the line.
About 28GB of data were publicly accessible, MacKeeper Security Research Center reveals. The recordings of inbound and outbound phone calls were included in the database. In most of the audio recordings, it seems that the name of the marketing company is clearly mentioned, while in others it does not appear.
The breach was reported by MacKeeper and they are now putting VICI Marketing in the spotlight for its failure to protect data.
"There is enough information in each call to provide cyber criminals with all they need to steal the credit card information or commit a wide range of crimes,” the security firm says. It then adds that in some of the recordings, the customers are not even warned about the calls being recorded or stored, which can be illegal since the calls involve people in 11 US states where the laws mandate consent before recordings can be made.
Already in hot water
VICI Marketing has previously been involved in a case where it had to pay a $350,000 settlement after the company was accused of obtaining stolen consumer information and it did not take the proper steps to make sure the data was acquired legitimately. Despite the fact that they were fined, the company has still not secured customer or company data.
The files found by MacKeeper Security Research Center add up to 28GB. The database contains hundreds of thousands of records that could take a while to go through. “It is unclear if the sensitive data is being sold or acquired by 3rd parties,” the company notes. They add that MacKeeper works closely with law enforcement and US Homeland Security in cases where data is part of a criminal or civil investigation.
“There is no suspected wrongdoing at this time other than leaking as many as 17,649 audio recordings with credit card numbers and private customer files,” they note.