Bing Search Engine Data Leaks, Users In 70 Countries Become Victims

Ilustrasi Bing (Image Credit: Search Engine Journal)

JAKARTA - The data leak occurred again. This time Microsoft's giant search engine, Bing, was the victim of the hack. Cybercriminals broke through the Elastic server loophole and removed some of its password protections.

Cyber security researchers from WizCase reported that they found a server that has been unprotected since September 12, the authentication is also thought to have been removed two days earlier. The data leak is known to have come from the Bing mobile application.

Then, the research team contacted Microsoft on September 13 and informed the Microsoft Security Response Center of the leak's findings. This was quoted from MSFT, Monday, September 28.

It is known that the data collected covers more than 70 countries, and it is believed that anyone who did a search using the Bing mobile app from September 10 to September 16, was the victim of a data leak.

Fortunately, encrypted user data is still safe on Microsoft servers. However, some of the leaks include data collected from users using the Bing mobile app.

Such as search terms (excluding search in private mode), GPS coordinates (if location permission is enabled), search date and time, Firebase notification token, coupon data, partial list of URLs visited by users from search results.

Apart from that, hackers also get the device model used by Bing users, the operating system, three unique identifiers, such as the ADID which may be an identifier for a Microsoft account, deviceID and devicehash.

The team at WizCase points out that the data has been exposed to all hackers and con artists, because the nature of the leaked data is likely to be aimed at identifying individuals.

WizCase also does not deny that the dafa in the future can be used in various ways, including extortion, phishing scams, and physical attacks such as robbery. Of these, the more worrying data were assessed such as text search terms, GPS coordinates, and direct links to Microsoft accounts.

Do not escape, Bing and WizCase also suggest always using private mode to help reduce some privacy issues on various search engines.