Earlier this week it became known that open access was freely available database that contains 18 GB of personal data of almost all Ecuadorian citizens, including children. In total, experts found in the public domain about 20.8 million records, more than the total population, or 16.6 million people. The researchers explained that this discrepancy in figures arose from the duplicates and old records that contain information about people who have already died.
Who found an unprotected server, experts believed that the blame for the leakage of data lies with the local consulting company Novaestrat, which provides data analysis services, strategic marketing, and software development for the Ecuadorian market. As it turned out, they were right.
The Federal Police has already carried out a raid on Novaestrat office, which also served as the home to CEO William J. Roberto. (William Roberto G.), who was arrested and is being taken to the capital for questioning. During the search, was seized equipment companies, data storage devices, as well as documentation.
Ecuador’s government is already conducting an investigation and is going to look into how the company was able to get that amount of confidential information. According to officials, it is clear that Novaestrat does not break any of the country’s government servers. It is assumed that the data can be obtained in the years 2015-2017, during the time of the previous political regime.
Let me remind you that discovered the database containing the data obtained from both public and private sources, including the names, information about family members and relatives of the registration of civil status data, financial data, as well as information about the operation and ownership of the vehicle.
After the incident, the president of Ecuador asked to speed up the process of adopting a new law on the confidentiality of data, which is designed to protect the personal data of citizens. Ministry of communications has already confirmed that it will fulfill the desire of the president and introduce a new law to Parliament in the next three days.
