EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Last week, hundreds of thousands of potentially sensitive pieces of information leaked online and distributed on a site known as Distributed Denial of Secrets (similar to Wikileaks). All of the data came from police departments.
“…ten years of data from over 200 police departments, fusion centers and other law enforcement training and support resource,” were initially thought to have been released.
On June 20th, the National Fusion Center Association (NFCA) conducted an analysis that verified the authenticity of the leaked content. According to the NFCA, the data reflects 24 years’ worth of collection.
The leak exposes names, email addresses, phone numbers, PDF documents, images, texts, video files and more. It is thought that the data was originally obtained after a security breach at a US-based web development firm.
Experts state that cyber criminals, from nation-states to hactivists, might attempt to exploit the newly released information to serve their own purposes.
A former U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorney believes that the incident is unlikely to offer further insights into police misconduct. However, there is concern that it could put lives at risk.
For more on this story, visit KrebsonSecurity.com.
