SOURCE: New York Post
It was discovered that The New York Department of State website was allowing access to commercial real estate records including some personal information such as social security numbers. The potentially accessed informed includes commercial real estate mogul Donald Trumps. It was only a portion of the site and when officials realized that the records could be accessed they immediately shut down that portion of the site to ensure there was no longer a security risk. The documents were commercial loan documents that anyone could access on the website by performing a name search.
The State Department posts the forms and documents online so commercial lenders could access the financial status of applicants and potential borrowers. It’s common practice for commercial lenders to check the background of potential borrowers in determining loan applicants’ credit worthiness.
The Associate Press alerted officials of the security problem. It took more than 3 hours for the Department of State to block the information from being accessed. Others included in the breach were farmers who had loans for farm equipment.
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