Yes, that incident involving an unprotected Elasticsearch server did occur in October 2019. The Security researchers Vinny Troia and Bob Diachenko discovered the server, which contained approximately 1.2 billion records of personal data. The exposed data included a significant number of email addresses, with around 622 million unique email addresses being compromised. The data involved in the breach was sourced from a
company called People Data Labs (PDL). However, it's important to note that the server itself was not owned by PDL. Instead, it is believed that one of PDL's customers failed to adequately secure the database, resulting in the exposure of the data. The compromised information included not only email addresses but also other personal details such as employers, geographic locations, job titles, names, phone numbers, and social media profiles. The breach raised concerns about the potential for misuse of the exposed data and the importance of properly securing sensitive information.