Data Leak at Abu Dhabi Finance Week Exposes Details of 700+ Delegates
Unprotected cloud storage left passport scans of senior political and financial figures publicly accessible.
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Scans of more than 700 passports and state identity documents belonging to attendees of Abu Dhabi’s flagship investment summit were left publicly accessible on an unsecured cloud server, in a breach that exposes the cybersecurity risks shadowing high-profile global finance gatherings.
The exposed files were linked to Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW), a state-backed event hosted in December by Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the emirate’s international financial centre. According to documents reviewed by the Financial Times and security researcher Roni Suchowski, the cache included identity documents belonging to prominent political and financial figures, including David Cameron, hedge-fund billionaire Alan Howard, and investor and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
The server, Suchowski said, could be accessed through a standard web browser without authentication. In addition to passport scans and national ID cards, tens of thousands of related files — including invoices — were reportedly visible. Suchowski, who used commercially available scanning tools to identify the vulnerability, estimated the data may have been exposed for at least two months.
In a statement, ADFW confirmed “a vulnerability in a third-party vendor-managed storage environment” affecting a limited subset of 2025 attendees. The organisation said the environment was secured immediately upon identification, and that a preliminary review suggested that access had been limited to the reporting researcher. ADFW added that it had contacted affected individuals.
Other disclosed identities reportedly included Richard Teng, co-chief executive of Binance and former head of ADGM, and Lucie Berger. Representatives for several individuals declined to comment.
The breach is reputationally sensitive for Abu Dhabi, which has positioned itself as a secure, technologically sophisticated hub for global capital. ADFW, attended by more than 35,000 participants and promoted by senior Emirati leadership, serves as a showcase for the emirate’s ambitions to attract hedge funds, asset managers, and crypto firms.
Cybersecurity experts note that full passport scans are highly prized on illicit markets. Combined with other personal data, they can enable identity theft, targeted phishing, and account takeovers.
