Group-IB has announced it has carried out a deep dive into exposed digital assets discovered in 2021. During the research, Group-IB’s Attack Surface Management team analyzed instances hosting unsecured internet-facing databases.
The findings showed that from the first quarter of 2021 up to the first quarter of 2022, Group-IB has recorded a total of 1,550 public-facing exposed databases in Australia. “A public-facing database doesn’t necessarily mean it has been compromised or leaked with malicious intent. In most cases, internet-facing databases are an overlooked digital asset that has been misconfigured and thus unintentionally exposed to the open web. We want to underline that unsecured Internet-facing databases could be very risky if the attackers access them before the company-owner finds it’s forgotten or poorly protected asset,” — Group-IB said.
In the second half of 2021, the number of such databases increased by 8% to 670 as compared to the first half’s data with 622 exposed databases. Group-IB Attack Surface Management system continuously scans the entire IPv4 and identifies external-facing assets, hosting, for example, exposed databases, malware or phishing panels, and JS-sniffers. Corporate digital assets that are not properly managed undermine security investment and increase the attack surface, Group-IB experts warn. The consequences of an exposed database range from a data breach to a subsequent follow-up attack on the employees or customers whose information was left unsecured.
As the pandemic progressed with more people having to work from home, corporate networks kept getting more complex and extended. This inevitably led to an increase in the number of public-facing assets that were not inventoried properly. In 2021, nearly USD 1.2 billion worth of penalties has been issued against companies for violations of the GDPR. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach increased from USD 3.86 million to USD 4.24 million last year. In many cases, a data breach starts with a preventable security risk, such as a database exposed to the open web.
As such, in 2021 alone, Group-IB Attack Surface Management team identified 308,000 global incidents of databases exposed to the open web. The number of public-facing databases kept growing almost every quarter since the beginning of 2021 to reach a peak in Q1 2022.
Most of the exposed databases discovered between the Q1’2021 and Q1’2022 used Redis database management system.
When it comes to management of high-risk digital assets, timely discovery plays a key role as threat actors are quick in spotting a chance to steal sensitive information or advance further in the network. According to the Attack Surface Management team’s findings, in the first quarter of 2021, it took an average of 170.2 days for an exposed database owner to fix the issue. The average time was decreasing gradually over 2021, but it climbed back to the initial value of 170 in the first quarter of 2022.
Country-wise, last year, most of the databases exposed to the open web were discovered on the servers located in the US.
