Kanopy.com ElasticSearch database left unsecured

The movie streaming service Kanopy has been leaking access and API logs through an unsecured ElasticSearch database, according to a cybersecurity researcher.

Justin Paine, director of trust and safety at Cloudflare according to LinkedIn, and blogging under the name xxdesmus noted that since March 7 the site has been leaking up to 40 million log lines per day containing a laundry list of personal information including the customer names, geolocation by latitude and longtitude and the names of movies watched.

“Based on the client IP a bad actor (via the API logs or the web server logs) could have identified all videos searched for and/or watched by their client IP. In combination with the geo information, timestamp, and device type it likely would have been possible to identify the identity of a person behind that client IP (in the case of a static IP from their ISP). Depending on the videos being watched -- that potentially could be embarassing (sic) information,” he wrote.

Paine said he has attempted to contact Kanopy through messages and social media starting on March 17, but did not receive a reply. At this point he contacted the hosting provider and the database was taken offline on March 18.