- ADFW 2025 exposed 700+ passport and ID scans of high-profile attendees
- Leak included documents of David Cameron, Anthony Scaramucci, Alan Howard, and Binance’s Richard Teng
- Misconfigured third-party vendor database secured after discovery; no evidence of malicious access
Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW) reportedly leaked super sensitive information on its attendees, including hundreds of high-profile individuals.
Organized by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) under the patronage of senior UAE leadership, the event is a major financial industry event which brings together global leaders in finance, investment, policy, technology, and markets.
But according to a new Financial Times report, ADFW kept a public, non-password-protected database, containing scans of more than 700 passports and state identity cards.
No evidence of exploitation
The database was discovered by freelance security researcher and consultant Roni Suchowski, and among the people whose passports were leaked are US investor and former White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, Former British Prime Minister David Cameron, and hedge fund billionaire Alan Howard.
Other high-profile individuals mentioned in their report include Richard Teng, co-chief executive of crypto exchange Binance, who is also the former chief executive of Abu Dhabi’s ADGM, and Lucie Berger, the EU’s ambassador to the UAE.
The report claims more than 35,000 people participated in the event, which would mean that only a tiny portion of the visitors had their data leaked. So far, none of the people mentioned in the reports commented about the leak.
Speaking to Reuters, ADFW said it addressed “a vulnerability in a third-party vendor-managed storage environment relating to a limited subset of ADFW 2025 attendees.”
“The environment was secured immediately upon identification, and our initial review indicates that access activity was limited to the researcher who identified the issue,” ADFW added. In other words, hackers didn’t find the database before the researcher did.
Misconfigured databases continue to be the leading cause of data leaks across the internet.
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