Researchers have discovered that the personal data of ten million Chileans has been leaked online, putting more than half of the country’s population at risk.
Experts from Cyber news say the data came from Caja Los Andes, a company that provides health insurance, loans, mortgages and pension funds to Chileans.
It is the largest family allowance compensation company in Chile, employing almost 3,000 people.
The fund reportedly had four million members in 2023, but the leaked dataset contained details of more than double that number. This suggests that the database includes family members, people who have switched providers, or people who may have died, Cybernews researchers explained.
“Leaked home addresses and financial data in a single data breach make these individuals vulnerable to targeted robberies or physical threats. Moreover, even without direct physical threats, they could become prime targets for fraud and financial exploitation, as there are many other PII, such as email addresses, that make this dataset a valuable target for phishing operations.”
The Apache Cassandra database leak was reportedly due to a lack of authentication. Under Chilean data protection laws, the company responsible for the personal data leak faces severe penalties, including fines of up to 4% of its annual revenue, as well as extensive lawsuits from affected individuals.
Protect yourself
The news comes shortly after reports of one of the largest data breaches in history, which put nearly three billion people at risk. Data breaches are all too common, and when so many different organizations store everyone’s data, how can you protect yours?
The most important thing is to stay alert, especially to be vigilant and change your passwords frequently. For anyone who is concerned that their information could be exposed, Protection against identity theft Plans that include dark web monitoring and credit monitoring ensure you identify any vulnerabilities as soon as they arise.
