Secret terrorist watchlist with 2 million records exposed online
www.bleepingcomputer.com
A secret terrorist watchlist with 1.9 million records, including "no-fly" records was exposed on the internet. The list was left accessible on an Elasticsearch cluster that had no password on it.

The list was left accessible on an Elasticsearch cluster that had no password on it.

X leaked because of misconfigured elasticsearch is pretty much a meme at this point…

  • @[email protected]
    6•3 years ago

    What does elasticsearch actually do? I went to their website and it’s written in corporate speak which I don’t understand.

    • Dreeg Ocedam
      8•3 years ago

      If I understand correctly it’s a form of database that specializes in full text indexing, to allow build basic search engines for within a website.

      • Jedrax
        3•3 years ago

        So like that stupid google search toolbar that bad websites will use that only searches their website?

        • Dreeg Ocedam
          2•3 years ago

          Or the search feature such as the one inside of lemmy. I think the search in MDN is powered by elasticsearch.

          It’s not stupid, it’s very useful on a lot of websites actually. But given the licensing issues with ElasticSearch I think it makes more sense to just use PostgreSQL’s full text search features instead of ElasticSearch, and I think that’s what lemmy does. It’s also likely simpler to setup since if you’re already using PostgreSQL it doesn’t add any dependency.