Almost 8,000 Could be Affected by Federal Emergency Loan Data Breach
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AnonymousCoward:
Almost 8,000 could be affected by federal emergency loan data breach:
Almost 8,000 business owners who applied for a loan from the Small Business Administration may have had their personal information exposed to other applicants, the SBA admitted on Tuesday.
[...] A Trump administration official described the problem to CNBC:
The official said that in order to access other business owners' information, small business applicants must have been in the loan application portal. If the user attempted to hit the page back button, he or she may have seen information that belonged to another business owner, not their own.
The SBA says it discovered the flaw on March 25 and notified affected users. One victim posted a copy last Friday of a paper letter she received about the breach. The letter stated that personally identifiable information-including Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and financial data-may have been exposed. The letter said that, as of last week, there was no sign yet of the data being misused.
The SBA says that it immediately disabled the portion of its website that was exposing applicant data, fixed the problem, and re-launched the website. Affected businesses have been offered a year of free credit monitoring.
Related:
SBA reveals potential data breach impacting 8,000 emergency business loan applicants
SBA says data breach affected nearly 8,000 small businesses
Small Business Administration reports data breach in disaster loan website
A data leak is just the latest example of the Small Business Administration's struggles with shaky IT, and experts fear the worst could be yet to come
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.