Last Updated on 29/07/2020 by TheDigitalHacker
Law enforcement agencies have often been on the hit list of hackers. It is so as they have a lot of sensitive information with them in their databases, which, if leaked, would be a significant achievement for them.
The attack
These hackers attacked several data centers that were being used by hundreds of agencies across the country. The data stolen was leaked through the “Blueleaks” archives.
- The hacktivist group dubbed ‘Distributed Denial of Secrets‘ (DDoSecrets) leaked 296 GB of data, which consisted of sensitive information about more than 200 US law enforcement agencies and fusion centers.
- The leaked files, includes more than one million data files, like emails, videos, audio files, scanned documents, etc., that contained sensitive information like names, bank account numbers, and phone numbers.
- Most of the files were labeled as “Netsential.com Inc,” the web hosting company which is based in Houston, Texas, that provides web hosting for many US law enforcement agencies and fusion centers.
DDoSecrets
DDoSecrets is a group of transparency advocates, that first appeared around the end of 2018. The group is known for its large leak of the archive of material, called the “The Dark Side of the Kremlin“, hacked from Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs in January 2019.
Law enforcement agencies being targeted.
Many Law enforcement agencies have been targeted in the past few months and have fallen victims to data leak or breach.
- Earlier this month, some hackers were identified, caught, and arrested, who were found using suspicious equipment inside the networks of Slovakian law enforcement and judiciary agencies, for wiretapping purposes. Two of these potential hackers were high-ranking officials inside the Slovak government agency National Network and Electronic Services Agency (NASES).
- In February, Clearview AI, the facial-recognition contractor working with Law enforcement agencies, reported that an intruder hacked into its systems, and had stolen its entire client list. The company had been working on 3 billion images scrapped from the internet, which included Facebook, YouTube, and Venmo.
Image credit: Sputnik news
