In June 2018, Wired reported that Exactis, a marketing and
data-aggregation firm, leaked an estimated 340 million records in
what is shaping up to be one of the largest data breaches in the
United States to date.
The leak was discovered by Vinny Troia, security researcher and
founder of Night Lion Security. Troia discovered Exactis' leak
while searching ElasticSearch, an internet database search engine.
There he found Exactis' database was accessible without any
firewall protection. No information was provided concerning whether
this leak has been accessed by unauthorized individuals.
Exactis' website claims to have gathered data on over 218
million individuals. This included 110 million households across
the U.S. and 3.5 billion "consumer, business, and digital
records." Troia searched dozens of names ranging from those of
personal acquaintances to celebrities and found that almost every
one of them existed in Exactis' system.
