Description

U.S. Internet Corp., a Minnesota-based Internet provider, operates a business unit called Securence, which offers filtered and secure email services to businesses, educational institutions, and government agencies globally. However, it was recently discovered that U.S. Internet had inadvertently exposed over a decade's worth of internal emails, as well as those of thousands of Securence clients, in plain text on the Internet. Hold Security, a cybersecurity firm, notified KrebsOnSecurity about this discovery. Hold Security found a public link to a U.S. Internet email server listing over 6,500 domain names, each with its own clickable link. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that the exposed emails included communications dating back to 2008 and belonged to various entities, including state and local governments. Remarkably, the exposed index also contained internal messages for every current and former employee of U.S. Internet and its subsidiary USI Wireless. After being notified of the issue, U.S. Internet promptly removed all published inboxes from the Internet. CEO Travis Carter acknowledged the incident and stated that the misconfiguration responsible for the exposure was put in place by a former employee and went unnoticed. Additionally, Hold Security discovered that hackers were exploiting a Securence service called Url-Shield to create links redirecting visitors to malicious websites. Despite these revelations, U.S. Internet has not disclosed the duration of the exposure or when the misconfiguration occurred, nor has it addressed the incident on its website. KrebsOnSecurity, which has reported on data breaches for nearly two decades, emphasized the severity of the oversight and called for greater transparency and security measures from U.S. Internet before managing anyone's email services again.