US cell carrier Assist Wireless exposed thousands of customer IDs

guest · Sep 2, 2020

US cell carrier Assist Wireless exposed thousands of customer IDs
September 2, 2020
https://au.news.yahoo.com/us-cell-carrier-assist-wireless-150020998.html

U.S. cell carrier Assist Wireless left tens of thousands of personal customer documents on its website by mistake.

Assist provides free government-subsidized cell phones to low-income households across Oklahoma through the Lifeline program, set up by the Federal Communications Commission in 1985. Lifeline helps households on federal assistance programs, like food stamps or public housing, get access to cheap cell phone plans.
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But part of the carrier's website was leaking customer documents — including driver's licenses, passports and Social Security cards — which customers submit to verify their eligibility to sign up for a free phone and a plan.
The documents are dated between 2019 and 2020.

Assist said that the plugin by default puts a backup of uploaded images in a separate folder, but that the backup location in Assist's case was not secure.
"We have resolved the issue by turning the backup off and removed the folder from public view," said Assist.
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"Assist Wireless takes security and consumer data very seriously. We are hiring a third-party security firm to provide us with a thorough security audit and subsequent consultation on ensuring customer data is as safe as possible moving forward," the carrier said.

The carrier also said it would notify customers if their data was exposed in the security lapse.
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US cell carrier Assist Wireless exposed thousands of customer IDs

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