14 DAY TRIAL // The local government authorities of Dallas County, Texas, have been exposing private user information for more than a decade, a local CBS TV station is reporting.
Dallas County is a county (smaller administrative unit) in the state of Texas, USA. Recent census information shows that the county, which mainly consists of the perimeter around the city of Dallas, is home for 2.3 million US citizens.
According to an investigation carried out by CBS11's iTeam, its reporters discovered a serious issue over the summer that allows third-parties unauthorized access to important and extremely personal user details.
Reporters claim that private information of thousands of users is easily accessible. The type of exposed data includes social security numbers of parents and children, names, birthdays, addresses, and driver’s license numbers.
If you review the data, this looks a lot like a dump of a government database, and not your typical data recorded during account sign-ups.
"I'm not sure how long it will take [to take down the data offline]... but I am addressing the issue... there is no quick fix," said a Dallas County official, in a statement for CBS11 over a week ago.
CBS11's staff worked together with local authorities to solve the unnamed issue, but as months went by, no headway has been made towards solving the problem.
Reporters planned to air a special about the security issue last week, but the TV station decided to postpone its report and give local authorities even more time to secure their website.