‘Mystery’ data breach dubbed db8151dd exposes records of 22M people

guest · May 18, 2020

‘Mystery’ data breach dubbed db8151dd exposes records of 22M people
May 15, 2020
https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/15/db8151dd/

A massive data breach dubbed db8151dd has exposed the records of 22M people – including addresses, phone numbers, and social media links. But the source of the data is a mystery …

I got an email alert this morning from the haveibeenpwned.com site telling me that my details were included. The exposed data appears extensive.
However, Troy Hunt, who runs the site, said that nobody has been able to identify where the information came from.

I was reticent to write this blog post because it leaves a lot of questions unanswered, questions that we should be able to answer. It’s about a data breach with almost 90GB of personal information in it across tens of millions of records – including mine. Here’s what I know: [...]
Best guess is it’s some kind of aggregated data from a number of sources [...]
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Data has been added to Have I Been Pwned:

db8151dd - 22,802,117 breached accounts

Covve
In February 2020, a massive trove of personal information referred to as "db8151dd" was provided to HIBP after being found left exposed on a publicly facing Elasticsearch server. Later identified as originating from the Covve contacts app, the exposed data included extensive personal information and interactions between Covve users and their contacts. The data was provided to HIBP by dehashed.com.

Breach date: 20 February 2020
Date added to HIBP: 15 May 2020
Compromised accounts: 22,802,117
Compromised data: Email addresses, Job titles, Names, Phone numbers, Physical addresses, Social media profiles
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guest · May 18, 2020

The origin of the breach has been identified:

The Unattributable "db8151dd" Data Breach

Edit 3: Thanks to some community sleuthing, the origin of this breach has now been identified as the Covve contacts app. Their public disclosure is in that link and they've also been in contact with regulators and had a couple of phone calls with myself.
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Covve: Security incident

On the 15th of May 2020 we became aware that some user data was compromised through unauthorised access to one of our systems. We immediately launched an investigation into the incident and we are taking appropriate steps to prevent any such incidents in the future.

Data belonging to approximately 90,000 users was compromised by a 3rd party who gained unauthorized access to a legacy system before it was decommissioned in early January. This system related to the now-retired Covve web app.
It appears at this stage that contact data such as name and contact details were accessed, that the data cannot be directly associated with specific users and no user passwords were compromised.
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guest · May 19, 2020

Developer in Cyprus Claims Breach of Contacts App
Covve Visual Network Says It's Notifying Users and Regulators
May 18, 2020
https://www.inforisktoday.com/developer-in-cyprus-claims-breach-contacts-app-a-14295

A Cyprus-based app developer acknowledges that it owns a large batch of data that apparently was left exposed on an open Elasticsearch database. A portion of the data was posted on a forum for trading data leaks.

Alex Protogerellis, founder and CTO of Covve, tells Information Security Media Group that the web application that included the Elasticsearch database was decommissioned in January .

"We're in the process of investigating this," he says.
Covve offers a contacts-storing app for iOS and Android that allows users to scan business cards, get news alerts and write notes about contacts, a CRM-like function. It sells subscriptions for more advanced features, such as daily backups.
Business Card-Like Data
The exposed data includes names, titles, email addresses, phone numbers, business names and countries. It doesn't include financial data, birth dates or other more personal data. Also, there are no hashed passwords or passwords. The total batch is about 90 GB, encompassing tens of millions of records.
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Covve is now notifying the registered users of the app. But there's another thorny issue that is rubbing some people notified by HIBP of the breach the wrong way.

Since Covve is a contacts app, data was exposed for millions who never used Covve. Also, some of the records contained the personal notes that had been attached when a contact was inputted in Covve, which may not be information that a person would want public.
Hunt says that overall, however, the data isn't that sensitive.

"It's minor in the scheme of things," Hunt says. "The angle of this is more the total loss of control of our data and the fact that other people - very innocent friends - have that data and are using it in ways you didn't expect."
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