Cheapo telcos fined for their cheapo security: Financial records on 305,000 people spilled

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American watchdog the FCC is fining a pair of US mobile operators for an astonishing lack of security in handling customer information.

The commission said that TerraCom Wireless and YourTel Wireless improperly stored information on 305,000 customers and will have to pay a joint fine of $10m split between the two firms as a penalty.

According to the FCC's order, the two companies used a web service which did not properly secure customer records and personal information.

Both companies offered the discounted Lifeline Assistance phone service for low-income residents of the US. As part of the registration process, customers are required to submit financial records which prove that their incomes are low enough to qualify for government-backed scheme.

The FCC says that those records, and other personal information, were given to IT services firm Vcare, which then left the records out in the open and completely unencrypted. It wasn't until a journalist stumbled upon the records, the FCC says, that the security lapse was exposed.

"In early 2013, an investigative reporter working for Scripps Howard News Service (Scripps) discovered that the Companies were storing [Proprietary Information] and documents submitted by low income Lifeline service applicants on an unprotected internet site," the FCC said.

"Between March 24, 2013, and April 26, 2013, Scripps accessed at least 128,066 confidential records and documents submitted by subscribers and applicants for the Companies’ services. Scripps located a consumer’s data file by conducting a simple Google search. Once it had located a single file, Scripps shortened that file's URL and obtained access to the entire directory of applicant and subscriber data."

The commission said that it will be extracting the fine based on both violations of federal data protection laws and their own terms and conditions. ®

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