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Trail’s End exposes personal information of Boy Scouts

Trail’s End exposes personal information of Boy Scouts
  • A web developer and a Scout parent noticed that the personal information of Boy Scouts was visible through a simple search.
  • The exposed information includes children’s full names, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers, parent names, favorite products, and affiliation.

What is the problem?

Trail’s End suffered a data breach compromising the personal information of children and parents associated with the Boy Scouts of America.

Trail’s End is a fundraising organization that partners with the Boy Scouts of America to help them raise money for programs and activities.

What information was compromised?

The exposed information includes children’s full names, dates of birth, email addresses, phone numbers, parent names, favorite products, and affiliation.

The big picture

A web developer and a Scout parent noticed that the personal information of Boy Scouts was visible through a simple search. Upon which, the web developer notified Trail’s End about the data exposure.

  • Upon becoming aware of the incident, Trail’s End promptly fixed the vulnerability that allowed unauthorized users to view the data.
  • The fundraising organization then notified the Boy Scouts of America and other local councils about the data exposure.

“We apologize for this incident. We are taking steps to increase the security and monitoring of our systems and will continue to put our users first,” Trail’s End said, Charlotte Agenda reported.

What is the impact?

Exactly how many users’ information was exposed during the incident and how long the information was exposed still remains unclear. However, Boy Scouts of America has over 2.3 million youth members and nearly 1 million adult volunteers.

What they’re saying?

Trail’s End denied the characterization of the issue as a “data leak”, stating that the data incident was noticed by a web developer who knew how to find information, unlike other users.

“The person who accessed the data is a Scout parent who is a web developer and knew how to find information that most users do not,” Chris Naviaux, Chief Information Officer at Trail’s End said.

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