885 million bank transactions, social security numbers leaked

SAN FRANCISCO

Real estate title insurance giant First American Financial Corp. had leaked a whopping 885 million sensitive customer financial records, going back to 2003, on its website for everybody to access.

According to KrebsOnSecurity.com, a website that covers computer security and cyber crime, the real estate title insurance giant leaked hundreds of millions of documents related to mortgage deals included bank account numbers and statements, mortgage and tax records, Social Security numbers, wire transaction receipts, and driver's license images.

"Ben Shoval, the developer who notified KrebsOnSecurity about the data exposure, said that's because First American is one of the most widely-used companies for real estate title insurance and for closing real estate deals—where both parties to the sale meet in a room and sign stacks of legal documents," KrebsOnSecurity.com reported this week.

Shoval shared a document link he had been given by First American from a recent transaction, which referenced a record number that was nine digits long and dated April 2019. 

Modifying the document number in his link by numbers in either direction yielded other peoples' records before or after the same date and time, indicating the document numbers may have been issued sequentially.

"The earliest document number available on the site (000000075) referenced to a real estate transaction from 2003. From there, the dates on the documents get closer to real time with each forward increment in the record number," the report added. — IANS