Tech News

FOIA.gov Exposes Social Security Numbers

The US Office of Personnel Management lost more than 21.5 million records that were stolen, and now the US transparency site, FOIA.gov https://www.foia.gov/, has exposed sensitive information publicly, including birth dates, addresses, contact details, and immigrant identification numbers,

According to CNN https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/03/politics/foia-revealed-social-security-numbers/index.html, "The error, on a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request portal, was fixed after CNN alerted the government to the situation. For weeks prior, however, individuals' sensitive personal information was available on the public-facing database unbeknownst to them or the government."

The root of the problem was the site's search software that is used to search existing FOIA requests. The site usually masks personal details, but a bug in the software allowed all information to be displayed, including social security numbers.

The bug was introduced when the website, managed by the EPA, was upgraded to version 3.0 in July 2018. According to an email obtained by CNN the Primary Management Office (PMO) has "implemented program fixes that resolved the problems."

AWS RDS Comes to the Data Center with VMware

In an unexpected move, VMware and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the arrival of AWS Relational Database Service (RDS) to VMware. Sys admins can now take advantage of AWS RDS not only on VMware Cloud but also in their own data center. The announcement was made at the VMworld 2018 conference in Las Vegas.

Unlike bringing everything to its cloud, AWS can now go inside the data center. AWS RDS will help sys admins manage a wide range of enterprise databases, including Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB databases.

"Managing the administrative and operational muck of databases is hard work, error-prone, and resource intensive," said Andy Jassy, CEO, AWS. "We're excited to bring this same operationally battle-tested service to VMware customers' on-premises and hybrid environments, which will not only make database management much easier for enterprises but also make it simpler for these databases to transition to the cloud." https://ir.vmware.com/overview/press-releases/press-release-details/2018/AWS-and-VMware-Announce-Amazon-Relational-Database-Service-on-VMware/default.aspx

The move by AWS is a clear indication of the growing demand for hybrid cloud where customers want to run workloads on both public and private clouds.