If you are a high-profile target, or is worth the trouble of your adversaries, here’s another way your personal data can leak.
Summary
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Hackers are selling hacked police emails on the open market.
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These emails can be used to make fraudulent Emergency Data Requests (EDRs) to social media companies like TikTok, Discord, Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram
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EDRs are a way for law enforcement to quickly obtain user data in high-stakes situations.
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Hackers can use compromised police emails to pose as law enforcement officers and trick social media companies into handing over user data.
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This data can then be used for criminal purposes, such as harassment, extortion, or physical violence.
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Social media companies are aware of the problem and are taking steps to protect themselves, but it is an ongoing challenge.
Additional details
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The hacker who emailed the journalist claimed to have access to an FBI email account.
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Other hackers are selling emails belonging to the governments of Thailand, the UK, Germany, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
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One Telegram group where government emails are being advertised is focused on physical violence against targets.
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Social media, including Meta, Tiktok, and Discord, may have measures in place to block fraudulent EDRs.
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However, it is still possible for hackers to get through these measures, as evidenced by the cases of Apple and Meta giving up user data in response to fraudulent EDRs.
Wait are you telling me that having an internal standing army with broad powers to dominate the rest of us is a situation that can be abused? And here all this time I thought they made us safer.
That depends entirely on your definition of “us”.
Police are almost entirely advantageous to people with privilege.
I would argue literally everyone would be better off in a liberated world, even those that are wealthy and privileged under our current system. As it is they have poverty and the violence of the state as a warning of what will happen if they ever stop upholding the status quo.
Nah, too many assholes. There are too many people ready to take advantage and just as many people waiting to beat the fuck out of anybody they can for the hell of it. When you get rid of the police they don’t go away, they just become unregulated.
When I talk about a “liberated world” what makes you think I’m talking about an entirely defenceless populace? I’m talking about organised horizontalist methods of community self defence where nobody is in an institutional position of privilege, not this bizarro world setup where we pay a bunch of money to fund a gang of thugs who can beat us up whenever they feel like it.
