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San Francisco (AFP) – On Wednesday, a source in the company said that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, handed over user information to hackers who impersonated police officers last year.
The source, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the attackers were able to obtain details such as physical addresses or phone numbers with forged “emergency data requests”.
Hackers use government or police emails or websites to trick their victims into believing they cannot wait for a judge’s order to obtain the information because it is an “urgent life or death matter,” the report wrote. Tuesday, Internet expert Brian Krebs wrote.
Bloomberg News reported that Apple also provided user information in response to the fraud requests. Apple and Meta have not officially confirmed these incidents, but they have provided data about their handling of the information requests.
Krebs wrote that when cops want data on the owner of a social media account, or a phone associated with it, they must file a court order or subpoena.
But in urgent cases, they can file an “emergency data request,” which “largely avoids any formal review and does not require the applicant to submit a court-approved document.”
The expert also pointed out that the lack of a single national system for this type of requests is one of the biggest existing problems, because each company ends up handling cases in its own way.
He added: “To further complicate matters, there are tens of thousands of law enforcement authorities around the world – including about 18,000 in the US alone – and all hackers need to succeed is unauthorized access to a single email account. Police Email.” .
© 2022 AFP
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