According to Bloomberg, Apple and Meta* provided customer data to hackers who posed as law enforcement officers. The information was confirmed by three sources.
Apple and Meta* provided basic subscriber data such as customer address, phone number, and IP address. The incident took place in mid-2021 in response to fake “emergency data requests”. Typically, such requests are only provided with a search warrant or a subpoena signed by a judge, people said. However, emergency requests do not require a court order. How many times the companies provided data on such applications is not known.
According to Apple’s policy, a law enforcement officer who submits an emergency request “may be contacted and asked to verify that the request was legitimate.” Meta* claims that the company reviews every data request and uses systems to detect abuse: “We block compromised accounts and cooperate with law enforcement.”
As Bloomberg notes, in some cases, the requests contained fake signatures; real requests contained fake signatures. Experts believe that hackers can use the obtained data for financial fraud. There is no information on how many users were affected.
*Meta is recognized as an extremist organization in Russia.
Source: ixbt
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