Connecting a hard drive to your home network is a smart idea: it can let you access your files no matter where you are. But now it seems that, in some cases, Google has been indexing the private files held on such devices
An investigation by CSO reveals that some mis-configured personal cloud devices and external hard disks connected to routers with FTP enabled have been indexed by Google. That means that personal files have been treated as public archives, which can be found via Google searches. CSO explains that it’s identified a slew of files found in this way,
including:
passwords, private photos (SFW / NSFW), personal journals and diaries, family genealogy documents, email correspondence, general household documentation and records, passports, state IDs, tax records, financial statements, credit card statements and account details, mortgage documents, banking statements and account details, birth records, death records, research and development planning, sales planning, customer lists, prospect lists, and more.
Gulp. It
goes on to explain a case study, in which it found the back-ups of a family’s computer stretching all the way back to 2009 via Google. In that case, their data had been archived on a Western Digital hard drive that was connected to a Linksys WRT1900AC router, which had FTP enabled. Indexed by Google, the family report they suffered a spate of compromised credit and debit cards as a result.
