120 Million American Households Exposed in 'Massive' Database Leak

Information on more than 120 million American households was sitting in a massive database found left exposed on the web earlier this month, Forbes has reported.

It included a huge range of personal details on residents, including addresses, ethnicity, interests and hobbies, income, right down to what kind of mortgage the house was under and how many children lived at the property.

Ryan Wilk, VP at NuData Security, said: “While Alteryx is trying to downplay this slightly negligent breach, in all reality it is very serious and will have long lasting effects, not only on adults, but also on children end the elderly. It is this type of valuable consumer identifiable information that hackers are working endlessly to obtain. Securing data should be a top priority at all companies.

"The mishandling of data through online databases or via a third party is no longer a valid excuse in the eyes of the public. These are sloppy practices that can be easily remedied by following simple but effective security techniques. Companies need to take a pro-active stance to secure all data and make security part of their core business practice.  As we have seen in the EU with GDPR, it is time for companies to take responsibility and use best practices when securing data that they are simply the custodian of, not the true owner.”