A widely used food delivery application has suffered a significant data breach that exposed the real-time location history, home addresses, and partial payment information of an estimated 8 million users. The breach, caused by a misconfigured cloud storage bucket, left sensitive user data publicly accessible on the internet for over two weeks before being discovered and secured.

Security researcher Marcus Webb stumbled upon the exposed data during a routine scan of publicly accessible cloud storage. He found that the bucket contained detailed delivery records, including pickup and drop-off addresses, GPS coordinates, timestamps, and masked credit card details. In some cases, it was possible to reconstruct users' daily routines based on their delivery history.

"This kind of data is a gold mine for stalkers, burglars, and identity thieves," Webb warned in his disclosure report. "Knowing where someone lives, where they work, and what their daily habits look like is incredibly sensitive information."

The food delivery company has since secured the storage bucket and launched an internal investigation. It has notified affected users and is working with cybersecurity experts to audit its cloud infrastructure for similar misconfigurations.

This incident adds to a growing list of data breaches caused by improperly configured cloud storage, a problem that continues to plague organizations of all sizes. Experts recommend regular audits of cloud resources, the use of automated misconfiguration detection tools, and stricter access control policies.