FBI alarmed by this underhand method to steal personal data

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning of a growing trend in hackers stealing personal data from customers of major companies. Giants like Meta, Apple, Snap, and Discord have been targeted.

Spoofed government email addresses

«Cybercriminals are likely to access compromised U.S. and foreign government email addresses and use them to make fraudulent requests for emergency data from U.S.-based companies, exposing customers' personal information to further criminal use ,” the federal police service warns in an official document.

In concrete terms, the suspects are spoofing government and law enforcement email addresses in order to obtain private user information (emails, phone numbers) from technology companies. The requests, such as subpoenas, contain false threats, such as allegations of human trafficking. In one of them, the cybercriminals assured that the person “ would suffer greatly or die ” if the company in question did not return the requested information.

The authority explains having observed a ” resurgence ” of this type of message, hence its decision to raise public awareness of this new scourge. An initiative rare enough to be noted on the part of the American government.

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The FBI calls for greater vigilance

The perpetrators are mainly known groups such as Recursion Team and Lapsus$, according to the FBI. The latter has also made headlines by specifically targeting Apple and Meta, which fell for it in 2022.

In this context, the authorities are calling on law enforcement to strengthen their cybersecurity systems to prevent intrusions, in particular by improving passwords and deploying multi-factor authentication. Similarly, companies are called upon to “ exercise critical thinking with regard to any urgent data requests “.

Phishing, doxing, harassment…

Hackers use the personal information obtained to target victims with different types of financial scams, including phishing. Risks of doxing, a malicious practice that consists of searching for and publicly publishing personal and private information about a person without their consent, are also noted. The victim may also suffer different forms of harassment once their personal data is in the hands of hackers.

This type of threat is added to the long list of cyberattacks, which are increasingly numerous at present. Proof of this is the major data leak that recently hit Free.

• The FBI warns of a method used by hackers to steal personal information from large technology companies.
• Cybercriminals are spoofing compromised email addresses of law enforcement agencies and contacting companies to demand the data.
• Apple, Meta, Snap and Discord have been targeted.

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