Scanned passports and other identity documents belonging to hundreds of participants in Abu Dhabi’s flagship investment conference were exposed online via an unprotected cloud server linked to Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW), the Financial Times reported.
Scans of more than 700 passports and state identity cards were found on a publicly accessible storage server associated with the state-sponsored event, which hosted more than 35,000 attendees in December. The data was accessible to anyone using a standard web browser, security researcher Roni Suchowski told the FT.
The exposed material included documents belonging to high-profile figures across politics and finance, including former UK prime minister David Cameron, billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard, and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, according to the report.
Other individuals whose details appeared in a sample of the files were Richard Teng, co-chief executive of crypto exchange Binance and a former chief of ADGM, and Lucie Berger, the EU’s ambassador to the UAE, the news outlet said.
Cybersecurity experts told the FT the lapse risked damaging the Gulf state’s reputation, particularly given Abu Dhabi’s emphasis on security and its role as a host of high-profile international events.
ADFW has become a marquee gathering as Abu Dhabi seeks to attract hedge funds and asset managers to its growing financial center. ADFW is organized by Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), which boasted that the “total assets represented during the week surpassed $62tn.”
Suchowski told the FT he found the exposed data using off-the-shelf software that scans cloud services for unsecured information. He said the cache included tens of thousands of publicly accessible files, including passports, ID cards, and ADFW invoices, all of which was likely exposed for at least two months.
Suchowski contacted the Financial Times about the about the issue after his earlier attempts to alert ADFW went unanswered, according to the report.
Read more at the Financial Times