VirusTotal sheds more light on data exposure

SecurityWeek reports that Google-owned VirusTotal has clarified that human error and not any cyberattack or platform vulnerability has caused the exposure of a database with names and email addresses of 5,600 registered customers, including those associated with the U.S. Justice Department, Cyber Command, National Security Agency, and the FBI, last week. Such a data breach has been caused by a VirusTotal employee mistakenly uploading a CVS file with the information of Premium account users to the platform on June 29, according to VirusTotal, which has apologized for the data leak but also emphasized that only partners and corporate clients could access the uploaded database file. VirusTotal also said that it was able to remove the accidentally uploaded database within an hour. "Since this incident, we have implemented new internal processes and technical controls to improve the security and safeguarding of customer data," said VirusTotal Head of Product Management Emiliano Martinez.