Hundreds of prominent international figures had their personal identification documents accidentally exposed online following a major financial conference in Abu Dhabi, according to a Financial Times investigation published Tuesday.
The security breach affected attendees of Abu Dhabi Finance Week, a government-backed event held in December that drew more than 35,000 participants from around the world. Among those whose passport information was compromised were former British Prime Minister David Cameron, billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard, and Anthony Scaramucci, the American investor who previously served as White House communications director.
Security researcher Roni Suchowski, working as a freelance consultant, uncovered the exposed data while examining an unsecured cloud storage system connected to the conference. According to the Financial Times report, anyone with a standard internet browser could have accessed scans of over 700 passports and government-issued identification cards.
When contacted by news outlets, Howard chose not to provide a statement, while neither Cameron nor Scaramucci immediately returned requests for comment.
Conference organizers acknowledged the incident in a statement, describing it as “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,” the Abu Dhabi Finance Week organization added in their response.
The vulnerable server was reportedly secured after Financial Times journalists contacted conference officials about the data exposure on Monday.
