Tobacco company got smoked by leaving secret recipes on a file share

Pen tester Dahvid Schloss found what appeared to be confidential tobacco product recipes on an unrestricted company file share. The discovery raised concerns that sensitive trade secrets and employee records could be accessed by anyone on the company network, despite signs that the security team was not detecting his scans.

The files included product names, dates and details about ingredients, their weights and volumes, and chemical percentages; they were labelled “Confidential” and “Do not share”. Schloss deleted his downloaded copy at his manager’s request, so he could not later produce it as evidence. The company’s security staff denied the files were genuine, and the disagreement continued for a year; the article does not say how it was resolved.