Trillions of Bytes of Data Exposed – Are Your Databases as Secure as You Thought?

The latest news trend seem to have something in common – is your data really as secure as you thought? In their latest report Switzerland-based digital security company BinaryEdge states that default configuration settings of databases may leave you at greater risk that first thought.

A newer database provider, MongoDB, was analyzed and BinaryEdge found that over 39,000 Mongo instances failed to have any type of authentication whatsoever and researchers were able to capture over 620 TB of data from unsuspecting users. Shocking, right?

BinaryEdge also looked into Redis, another extremely popular database provider. This time researchers found over 35,000 database instances where no authentication practices were present. Even more worrying was that many users were found to be running old, more attack prone copies of the database, making it even easier for attackers to find what they may be looking for.

The take away from these findings is simple, really. We live in an age where our data is stored in remote locations that nobody can find, but at the same time easily accessible to anybody and everybody. We MUST do everything we can to protect sensitive data – whether it’s a client list, phone numbers, addresses or credit card information. Unfortunately, this topic has become a major trend in news stories lately and yet they still keep coming out, meaning that not much is being done about this subject.

If you’re interested in learning more about database security check out this article by ZDnet as a starting point. If you’re unable to handle this type of work yourself, or have an external service managing this for you, it may be a good time to address what they are doing to protect your business’s data.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons | http://bit.ly/1NtOHHq

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Author: Garrett Graff

Garrett is a qualified engineer, and when he's not helping businesses grow as a consultant at Palladous, you can find him building hobby race cars, managing the family farming business or chilling out on the lake fishing. Get in touch on Google+ or drop him a line by e-mail.

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