The real estate records of top celebrities and ordinary homeowners, from Elon Musk and Kylie Jenner to Britney Spears, Donald J. Trump and Floyd Mayweather, have been published online without security credentials or passwords.
Cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered an unsecured database associated with New York-based online platform Real Estate Wealth Network and alerted VPNMentor. The exposed database stored his 1.5 billion records containing real estate ownership data for millions of individuals.
This database, 1.16 TB in size (1,523,776,691 total records), organized folders containing information about log data for property owners, sellers, investors, and internal users. This included daily logging from April 22, 2023 to October 23, 2023, revealing internal user search data.
Founded in 1993 by Cameron Dunlap, the Real Estate Wealth Network provides education and resources for real estate investing. The platform charges a non-refundable fee of $1,450 per year and grants access to extensive data collection, including online courses, training materials, community, and mentoring/coaching from experienced experts.
According to Fowler’s research, Kylie Jenner, Blake Shelton, Britney Spears, Floyd Mayweather, Dave Chappelle, Elon Musk & Associates LLC, Dolly Parton, Donald J. Trump, Mark Wahlberg, And Nancy Pelosi was also included in the exposed database.
Having a celebrity’s home address published online can pose a variety of risks, including threats to safety, invasion of privacy, stalking, and harassment by fans or malicious individuals.
“Data is organized into various folders according to real estate history, motivated sellers, bankruptcies, divorces, tax liens, foreclosures, homeowner association (HOA) liens, inheritances, court judgments, obituaries, vacant properties, etc. ” read a blog post from VPNMentor.
Real estate tax data, which includes details such as property ownership, property assessed value, tax assessment history, and property tax payment history, can be misused by criminals to collect personal information of property owners. Therefore, everyone, famous or unknown, is at risk.
Threat actors use data to target users through social engineering and phishing attacks with the goal of obtaining financial and other personal information. The risk of financial fraud can increase when records are exposed that show whether an individual purchased a home with cash without a mortgage or paid off the mortgage in full.
Real estate and mortgage fraud remains a pressing concern, with the FBI reporting 11,578 incidents resulting in losses of $350 million in one year, reflecting a 20% increase since 2017. I am. Real estate fraud typically involves stealing a homeowner’s identity and forging title documents.
Although the published database is protected from public access, a representative from Real Estate Wealth Network confirmed ownership. The duration of exposure and potential unauthorized access remains unknown. Only an internal forensic audit can confirm whether records were accessed, extracted, or downloaded.
This incident is a stark reminder that readily available information can be used to commit fraud. Property owners should be careful when sharing personal information, especially when responding to unsolicited requests for property details. Understanding the risks associated with semi-public data is important to protect your assets.
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