1.9 million+ records from the FBI’s terrorist watchlist available online

A security researcher discovered that a secret FBI’s terrorist watchlist was accidentally exposed on the internet for three weeks between July 19 and August 9, 2021.

The security researcher Bob Diachenko discovered a secret terrorist watchlist with 1.9 million records that were exposed on the internet for three weeks between July 19 and August 9, 2021.

In July, Diachenko discovered an unsecured Elasticsearch cluster containing 1.9 records of sensitive information on individuals, such as names, country citizenship, gender, date of birth, passport details, and no-fly status.

The list is extracted by the e FBI Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), a database used since 2003 by US feds and other agencies to track individuals who are “known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activities.”

The copy of the TSC database was discovered by the expert on a Bahrainian IP address.

“The exposed Elasticsearch cluster contained 1.9 million records,” Diachenko wrote on LinkedIn. “I do not know how much of the full TSC Watchlist it stored, but it seems plausible that the entire list was exposed.“

“Each record in the watchlist contained some or all of the following info:

Full name
TSC watchlist ID
Citizenship
Gender
Date of birth
Passport number
Country of issuance
No-fly indicator”

At the time of this writing is not clear if the unsecured server was operated directly by the a U.S. government agency, a third-party, or in the worst case by a threat actor that obtained it.

Diachenko immediately reported his discovery to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the instance of the database was taken down about three weeks later. It is a long period a circumstance that suggest that the server was not directly operated by the FBI.

“On July 19, 2021, The exposed server was indexed by search engines Censys and ZoomEye. I discovered the exposed data on the same day and reported it to the DHS.” continues the expert.

“The exposed server was taken down about three weeks later, on August 9, 2021. It’s not clear why it took so long, and I don’t know for sure whether any unauthorized parties accessed it.”

The exposed DA was also indexed by search engines Censys and ZoomEye, this means that other people could have had access to the secret list.

“It’s not clear why it took so long, and I don’t know for sure whether any unauthorized parties accessed it,” adds Diachenko.

This data leak could have a serious impact on the homeland security, the watchlist includes individual who represents a potential threat for the US even if they have yet to be charged of terrorism and other crimes.

“In the wrong hands, this list could be used to oppress, harass, or persecute people on the list and their families.” says the researcher. “It could cause any number of personal and professional problems for innocent people whose names are included in the list,”

Cases, where people landed on the no-fly list for refusing to become an informant, aren’t unheard of.

Diachenko believes this leak could therefore have negative repercussions for such people and suspects.

“The TSC watchlist is highly controversial. The ACLU, for example, has for many years fought against the use of a secret government no-fly list without due process,” concludes the researcher.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, FBI)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.