Cybersecurity researchers discovered an unprotected and unencrypted database containing over 161 million records belonging to movie ticket subscription service MoviePass. TechCrunch reported that many of the records pertained to daily service operations, but others held customer names, account data, and billing information, including credit card numbers. Some of the credit card numbers were masked except for the last four digits, while others were listed in full. MoviePass took the database offline, but experts believe it had been exposed online for months. Avast cybersecurity evangelist Luis Corrons said criminals and researchers both hunt such vulnerabilities, with very different motives. “We only become aware of these incidents when security researchers find them, however they do not just stumble upon these databases. They are always working to find weak spots. Cybercriminals do exactly the same, with the difference being that they won’t notify companies about the data exposure. They will just steal the information.”
