Jamaica's JamCOVID Pulled Offline After Third Security Lapse Exposed Travelers' Data

Jamaica's JamCOVID app and website were taken offline late on Thursday following a third security lapse, which exposed quarantine orders on more than half a million travelers to the island. From a report: JamCOVID was set up last year to help the government process travelers arriving on the island. Quarantine orders are issued by the Jamaican Ministry of Health and instruct travelers to stay in their accommodation for two weeks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These orders contain the traveler's name and the address of where they are ordered to stay. But a security researcher told TechCrunch that the quarantine orders were publicly accessible from the JamCOVID website but were not protected with a password. Although the files were accessible from anyone's web browser, the researcher asked not to be named for fear of legal repercussions from the Jamaican government.

More than 500,000 quarantine orders were exposed, some dating back to March 2020. TechCrunch shared these details with the Jamaica Gleaner, which was first to report on the security lapse after the news outlet verified the data spillage with local cybersecurity experts. Amber Group, which was contracted to build and maintain the JamCOVID coronavirus dashboard and immigration service, pulled the service offline a short time after TechCrunch and the Jamaica Gleaner contacted the company on Thursday evening. JamCOVID's website was replaced with a holding page that said the site was "under maintenance." At the time of publication, the site had returned.

Re: I was gonna patch that apache ...

[Happy Welsh Wizard]

I see that you too are a man of taste.

Re: how many travelers?

[klipclop]

At this point in the pandemic I think we need to look forward to lifting the emergency order and a road map to reopening. If governments are still trying to keep the current rules in place by summer, I think a lot more people will be traveling.

Re:

[alvinrod]

They're tourists. The why is because about a quarter of the country's jobs and a third of the country's GDP are based on or around the tourism industry.

Re:

[damn_registrars]

Exactly this. I've been to Jamaica a few times now, and a lot of people who haven't been (or haven't seen enough of it) might forget that Jamaica is really a third-world country. I don't mean this at all as an insult, it is honestly a country that lacks infrastructure and opportunity. A lot of people who live there honestly live and die on tourist dollars (as a side note while the Jamaican Dollar is the official currency, Jamaicans generally prefer the more stable US Dollar. as another side note the con

Re:

[Kerry Boehm]

I'll be doing my part shortly to help out the Jamaican tourist industry. We were at a Sandal's in Jamaica in Dec during the height of the US peak. It was definitely down in attendance but more people than I thought I'd see. Staff said they were running 40%. To me it was a glimpse into a world without Boomers. As a Gen X'er I was one of the senior guests.

You get what you pay for

[fph il quozientatore]

Well, well...

The Jamaican government has repeatedly defended Amber Group, which says it provided the JamCOVID technology to the government "for free." Amber Groupâ(TM)s Savadia has previously been quoted as saying that the company built the service in "three days."

My country went a similar route, and I am definitely worried.