The Register reports
that the terrorist database used by global banks and intelligence agencies
World-Check has reportedly leaked online.
The mid-2014 version of the database contains some 2.2 million
records and is used by 49 of the
world's 50 largest banks, along with 300
government and intelligence agencies.
The Thomson Reuters database is accused of falsely designating
citizens and organisations as terrorists. Banks have used this data in whole or
in part to shutter accounts, effectively locking people out of vast swathes of
the global banking system.
Established security researcher Chris Vickery found the database
and told The Register it is still exposed online after he disclosed its
location to Thomson Reuters.
"As far as I know, the original location of the leak is still
exposed to the public internet," Vickery says. "Thomson Reuters is
working feverishly to get it secured."
Thomson Reuters says it will provide citizens and organisations
information about their designation on individual request. Alerts are not
issued to known contacts of those affected when terrorist designations are
assigned, however.
A high profile public disclosure of the database beyond the
original leak could be wreckless: World-Check contains sensitive information on
citizens regarding their alleged criminal histories and terrorist links.
Thomson Reuters requests that banks and other customers use
multiple sources alongside World-Check and requests that the secretive database
not be cited in any public decision-making materials.
The organisation rejects accusations that World-Check is a
controversial service.
Inaccurate terror designations were first revealed by the BBC's
Radio 4 which gained 30 minutes of access to the database in August 2015 from a
disgruntled customer.
That program revealed multiple British citizens who had their HSBC
bank accounts closed in 2014 without the possibility of appeal, because what
they claimed were incorrect records in World-Check identifying them as having
terrorist links.
One of those was the account for the UK Finsbury Park Mosque which
was described in a HSBC letter as having "fallen outside of HSBC's risk
appetite".
The Mosque was in years past visited by Al Qaeda operatives,
Beslan Siege members, and had convicted terrorist Abu Hamza al-Masrim as its
imam in 1997.
Since that time the Mosque has been run by a group supported by
the Metropolitan Police.
Sources say HSBC closed on the mosque because it donated money to
Palestine during the 2015 Israel-Gaza war.
At the same time HSBC shuttered the account of the Cordoba
Foundation, a UK think tank which was designated by the United Arab Emirates as
a terrorist organisation for its alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The dynamic Muslim Brotherhood movement is a political opponent in
the region.
HSBC shuttered the accounts of foundation chief executive Anas
Altikriti, including his three-decade old personal account, and that of his
wife and two teenage children.
The BBC reported finding information in World-Check based on
Wikipedia entries, bias blogs, and state-backed news agencies.
Vice News also gained access to the World-Check database in
Feburary.
It found terrorist profiles including the Council on
American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad, joined former US
President George W. Bush in a post 9/11 press conference, and the organisation
itself.
Former World Bank and Bank of England advisor Mohamed Iqbal Asaria
awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire award in 2005 was also
listed as a terrorist.
Vickery has reported recent large-scale breaches including
information on 93 million Mexican voters in April. The records were exposed
thanks to a configuration error in a MongoDB database.
He also earlier revealed the exposure of 13 million records of
MacKeeper, Zeobit, and Kromtech, and some 1700 records of children from website
uKnowKids. ®
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