July 05, 9:00am EDT

In keeping with our commitment to security and transparency we wanted to inform you that our provider for SMS, Twilio, has alerted our security team to an incident that occurred. Below is the statement we received from Twilio which gives a detailed account of the incident and what has been done:

—--------------------------------------

Twilio has been notified by one of our backup carriers, iBasis, that IdentifyMobile inadvertently exposed certain SMS-related data sent by iBasis publicly on the internet that included personal data. We are writing to inform you that some of your personal data and non-personal data (such as data related to marketing campaigns) was accessed by a security research group while it was publicly exposed by IdentifyMobile.

Although this incident was outside Twilio’s control, we take it very seriously and are committed to helping you understand the full impact. 

What do you need to know? 

In order to deliver messages in specific regions, Twilio relies on numerous carriers to maximize deliverability to their final destinations. Twilio was notified that iBasis (a Twilio backup carrier) had used IdentifyMobile (iBasis's further backup carrier) who inadvertently enabled public access on an AWS S3 Bucket during development work. Information contained in this bucket was made public from May 10-15, 2024, and accessed between May 13-14, 2024. Based on a joint investigation between IdentifyMobile and Amazon AWS, we learned that a portion of this data was accessed by the Chaos Computing Club (CCC). CCC is a security research group that identifies security issues; CCC has confirmed that they are not holding any data downloaded from the AWS S3 Bucket. We do not have evidence that allows us to confirm that no other third party accessed the data. 

Twilio does not own this bucket, and none of our systems have been compromised in connection with this data exposure. This incident was the result of actions taken by IdentifyMobile and outside of Twilio’s control.

While we continue collaborating with these carriers to bring you the most accurate information regarding this exposure, the portion of data exposed by IdentifyMobile related to SMS sent between January 1, 2024 and May 15, 2024, and included: 

• Mobile number 

• SMS message content 

• SMS Sender ID 

• SMS Timestamp

What have we done so far?

• Twilio initiated our incident response process to rapidly investigate this matter.

• Twilio escalated this issue to the iBasis executive team; subsequently, we’ve done an analysis on the data logs that were compromised to provide you with as much information as possible.

• Out of an abundance of caution, we have ceased sending traffic to iBasis where possible. iBasis informed Twilio that it has stopped routing with IdentifyMobile.

• We will continue working with our 3rd party carriers to get you any additional details that may arise from this incident.

What do you need to do?

We recommend reviewing the SMS traffic you sent between January 1, 2024 and May 15, 2024, discussing the implications of an exposure with your internal team(s) and deciding if you need to engage with impacted individuals. If you need additional information regarding this incident, we are here to support you throughout this situation.

We deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

—--------------------------------------

What has StatusCast done?

Once StautsCast’s security team was alerted an audit was performed to try and determine the potential impact this had on our service. Based on Twilio’s report it is possible that some notifications sent through StatusCast’s service would have been sent using the iBasis carrier. Based on the report data would have included the recipient's phone number as well as the SMS message. SMS notifications in StatusCast are designed to be brief and to drive users to the status page. SMS messages do not include recipients name or other personal identifiable information(PII). 

As always in StatusCast you have the right to choose whether SMS notifications are sent or not. SMS options can be controlled in the Settings and Integration sections of the application if you wish to review your configurations. At this time there are no additional action items for StatusCast to take in regards to its application or infrastructure, however we will maintain close communication with Twilio and if any additional information is released we will pass it along through our own status page.

StautsCast has partnered with Twilio for years and they have maintained a strong commitment to security and transparency. We will take that as well as this incident into consideration as we continue to offer SMS notifications in the application. If you have any additional questions please reach out to us at support@statuscast.com