On September 26, 2020, researchers discovered an unsecured Elasticsearch server exposing more than 323,277 Cook County court related records containing highly sensitive personal data. Cook County, Illinois, is the second most populous county in the U.S., with a population in excess of 5 million people.
The records contained PII such as full names, home addresses, email addresses, and court case numbers, WebsitePlanet together with researcher Jeremiah Fowler, said. More worryingly, they also contained notes on the status of both the case and the individuals concerned.
