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In April 2018, data-aggregation firm LocalBlox left an Amazon S3 storage bucket accessible without a password. It contained up to 48 million profiles assembled from social networks, a real-estate site and other public-web sources. UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery discovered the exposed data and notified the company; Bitdefender reported that LocalBlox secured it a few hours later. Public accounts do not establish how long the bucket had been exposed, whether anyone downloaded the files, or whether the incident caused identity theft.
What happened to the profiles?
LocalBlox, a Washington-based data firm, collected and combined information associated with people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Zillow or related public-web sources. In April 2018, those files were found in an Amazon S3 bucket that did not require a password. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reported that the combined files totaled about 1.2 terabytes and held up to 48 million profiles.
UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery found the exposed storage and contacted LocalBlox CTO Ashfaq Rahman. Bitdefender’s April 2018 account says the company secured the data a few hours after notification. That is the reported response time after discovery—not evidence of how long the bucket had been open.
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The reported failure was that the cloud storage was left publicly accessible, rather than that an attacker was shown to have broken into LocalBlox’s systems. The event involved two separate risks: gathering information across services and then storing the assembled profiles without adequate access controls.
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| Risk | What it means in this incident | What is established |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and enrichment | Information associated with people across multiple sites was gathered and combined into richer profiles. | Reports describe data from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Zillow or related public-web sources. A 2019 U.S. Court of Appeals filing discussing hiQ Labs described LocalBlox as combining public data to “build a three-dimensional picture” of individuals. |
| Storage and access | The assembled files were kept in an Amazon S3 bucket that did not require a password. | The ITRC described up to 48 million profiles as kept without a password; Trend Micro classed this type of event as unintended disclosure from unattended cloud assets. |
Information visible on one person’s public profile is not necessarily harmless when it is collected at scale, joined with details from other services and made available as a searchable profile. The LocalBlox reports describe that aggregation risk separately from the cloud-storage failure that exposed the files.
What information did the database contain?
Contemporary accounts described a mix of identifying, contact and professional details. The ITRC specifically attributed scraped names, addresses, employment and job histories to Facebook and LinkedIn data; it also mentioned dates of birth and Twitter handles. Reports additionally listed email addresses and, in some cases, net-worth information.
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- Names, email addresses and postal addresses
- Dates of birth
- Employment details and job histories
- Twitter handles
- Net-worth information in some profiles
The reports describe the contents of the collected files; they do not establish that every profile contained every listed field or that every person used all of the named platforms.
How long was the bucket exposed, and did anyone access the data?
The public reporting cited here does not establish when the bucket first became accessible, how many people viewed or downloaded its contents, or whether the files were misused. The documented timeline is that Vickery discovered the storage, notified LocalBlox, and the company secured the data a few hours later, according to Bitdefender’s 2018 account. The interval between discovery and securing the bucket should not be mistaken for the total exposure period.
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These reports do not prove that a particular person became a victim of identity theft because of the incident. They also do not document a LocalBlox-specific victim-notification or remediation program.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What can you do about cross-site profile exposure?
Because the reports do not identify which individuals were included or document a specific remediation program, practical steps focus on limiting what is publicly available and watching for suspicious activity:
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- Review profile visibility. Check privacy and audience settings on social accounts and limit access to personal details that do not need to be public.
- Remove unnecessary contact and birth-date details. Where a service permits it, avoid displaying personal email addresses, postal addresses or a full date of birth publicly.
- Use a unique password for each account. A password reused across services can make one compromised login useful against another account.
- Enable multi-factor authentication. Turn it on for accounts that support it, especially email and social accounts.
- Watch for suspicious activity. Review account sign-ins and security alerts, and be cautious about unexpected messages that use personal or employment details to appear credible.
These are general privacy and account-security measures; they do not confirm that a particular reader’s profile was in the LocalBlox files.
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