Need Free Data? Two Thousand Terabytes Are Available
October 2, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read “Censys Reveals Open Directories Share More Than 2,000 TB of Unprotected Data.” What’s an open directory? According to the champion of redactions the term refers to lists of direct links to files. True?
The article reports:
These open directories could leak sensitive data, intellectual property or technical data and let an attacker compromise the entire system.
Why do these “lists” exist? Laziness, lack of staff who know what to do, and forgetting how an intern configured a server years ago?
The article states:
Why don’t search engines prohibit people from seeing those open directories? Censys researchers told TechRepublic that “while this may initially sound like a reasonable approach, it’s a bandage on the underlying issue of open directories being exposed on the internet in the first place.
Are open directories a good thing? I think it depends on one’s point of view. Why are bad actors generally cheerful these days? Attack surfaces are abundant and management floats above such hard-to-grasp details about online systems and services. Hey, what time is lunch?
Stephen E Arnold, October 2, 2023
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
