Ecuador offiicals have arrested the general manager of IT consulting firm Novaestrat after a massive data breach exposed the personal information of more than 20 million individuals, including 6.7 million children.
The 18GB cache of data was attributed to a leaky Elasticsearch server, but it has since been plugged. In response, local law enforcement authorities raided Novaestrat’s office, which also served as the home of Novaestrat general manager William Roberto G, according to ZDNet.
Esta tarde / noche la @PoliciaEcuador realizó el allanamiento del local señalado como domicilio de #Novaestrat que es además el domicilio de uno de sus directivos.
Allanamiento se hizo con orden de juez en el marco de la investigación que conduce @FiscaliaEcuador pic.twitter.com/toD79a1FDO
— María Paula Romo (@mariapaularomo) September 17, 2019
It is suspected that Novaestrat possibly gained accessed to the sensitive information during the rule of the former political regime, when it was granted multiple government contracts.
Given the privacy concerns associated with the breach, Ecuador’s Ministry of Telecommunications is planning to expedite the process of passing a new data privacy law in the country.
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