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WTF? Assist Wireless screws up, exposes tens of thousands of customer IDs

February 13, 2021

Oh, boy. Someone screwed up big time at Assist Wireless and exposed not just thousands, but tens of thousands of its Lifeline customers’ personal customer documents on its website.

Assist offers free government cell phones to low-income Americans in Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri and Oklahoma.

What kind of documents did it accidentally expose to potential identity thieves? Drivers licenses, passports and Social Security cards — all the documents customers routinely use to verify their eligibility to enroll in the Lifeline program.

And when did they expose them? You might have reason to worry if you enrolled during calendar years 2019 and 2020.

Security researcher John Wethington found the exposed documents through a simple Google search result, and asked TechCrunch to alert the carrier to the leak. Assist removed the exposed documents from its website a short time later.

TechCrunch.com explains how the problem was discovered:

Assist told TechCrunch that it traced the issue to a third-party plug-in, Imagify, which the carrier uses to optimize images on its website. Assist said that the plug-in by default puts a backup of uploaded images in a separate folder, but that the backup location in Assist’s case was not secure.

“We have resolved the issue by turning the backup off and removed the folder from public view,” said Assist.

The carrier told TechCrunch it also submitted an “urgent request” to Google to remove the documents from its cached image search results. (TechCrunch held this story until the images were scrubbed.)
Assist said it is investigating if anyone else found the exposed data before the issue was fixed.

Assist’s PR people are dancing as fast as they can to put lipstick on this pig:

“Assist Wireless takes security and consumer data very seriously. We are hiring a third-party security firm to provide us with a thorough security audit and subsequent consultation on ensuring customer data is as safe as possible moving forward.”

The company appears to be taking this seriously, but as we said in our headline, WTF? This isn’t a case of Russian hackers breaking into Assist’s website. It was an internal screw up of epic proportions.

The only good news out of this fiasco: Assist promises to notify customers whose data was accidentally revealed.

Tagged as: Arkansas, Assist Wireless, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma

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Comments

  1. Toni Moore says

    August 26, 2021 at 10:57 am

    All of the companies don’t have very good reputation. I don’t know who to pick.

  2. Donna Miller says

    June 12, 2021 at 5:30 am

    Assist wireless keeps messing up leave me hang!Service getting worse

  3. Henry says

    May 19, 2021 at 2:59 pm

    Assist Wireless information stated that they offer service in my state, I enter a local zip code and the response is that it is not available. Since they appeared to have been hacked, good that I was not eligible anyway.

    • Henry says

      September 23, 2021 at 2:53 pm

      Things keep changing with the Lifeline providers. Assist Wireless now says it is available and Terracom wireless now says that are not available, but before they were.

      • Free Government Cell Phones says

        September 23, 2021 at 2:55 pm

        Absolutely. It’s a constant battle to keep up-to-date with current offerings.

        • Henry says

          September 23, 2021 at 4:40 pm

          Need to revise my comment about Terracom wireless. They still are available in my area. However, Terracom Online is not available. I think it is the non-Lifeline affiliate of the company. Terracomwireless.com versus Terracomonline.com

          Going to the wrong website may get you the wrong information!

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