Gloucestershire Police

Gloucestershire Police sent a bulk email that identified victims of non-recent child abuse.

It has been fined £80,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

An officer sent an update on the case to 56 recipients by email but entered their email addresses in the ‘To’ field and did not activate the ‘BCC’ function, which would have prevented their details from being shared with others.

Each recipient of the e-mail includes victims, witnesses, lawyers and journalists who could see the full names and e-mail addresses of all the others.

The case was dealt with under the provisions and maximum penalties of the Data Protection Act 1998, and not the 2018 Act which has replaced it, because of the date of the breach.

Source: https://www.databreaches.net/uk-gloucestershire-police-fined-for-revealing-identities-of-abuse-victims-in-bcc-email-gaffe/

TPRM report: https://scoringcyber.rankiteo.com/company/gloucestershire-police

"id": "glo12119822",
"linkid": "gloucestershire-police",
"type": "Breach",
"date": "06/2018",
"severity": "100",
"impact": "6",
"explanation": "Attack threatening the economy of a geographical region"

{'affected_entities': [{'customers_affected': 56,
                        'industry': 'Public Sector',
                        'location': 'United Kingdom',
                        'name': 'Gloucestershire Police',
                        'type': 'Law Enforcement Agency'}],
 'attack_vector': 'Email Misconfiguration',
 'data_breach': {'number_of_records_exposed': 56,
                 'personally_identifiable_information': ['Email addresses',
                                                         'Full names'],
                 'sensitivity_of_data': 'High',
                 'type_of_data_compromised': ['Email addresses', 'Full names']},
 'description': 'Gloucestershire Police sent a bulk email that identified '
                'victims of non-recent child abuse.',
 'impact': {'data_compromised': ['Email addresses', 'Full names']},
 'post_incident_analysis': {'root_causes': "Improper use of email 'To' field "
                                           "instead of 'BCC'"},
 'references': [{'source': 'Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)'}],
 'regulatory_compliance': {'fines_imposed': '£80,000',
                           'regulations_violated': 'Data Protection Act 1998'},
 'title': 'Gloucestershire Police Data Breach',
 'type': 'Data Breach',
 'vulnerability_exploited': "Improper use of email 'To' field instead of 'BCC'"}