(José Niño, Headline USA) An individual claiming responsibility for a major cyberattack says they breached a nationwide law enforcement tip platform and absconded with over 8 million confidential submissions from anonymous informants, according to a report by Reuters.
The hacker, going by the moniker “Internet Yiff Machine,” declared in a public statement that they had successfully compromised P3 Global Intel, an arm of the safety firm Navigate360, and made off with 93 gigabytes of sensitive information.
The FBI offered no response to inquiries. Navigate360 issued a statement explaining the company was working to ascertain “whether we have experienced an incident involving our computer network and, if so, the extensiveness of the incident and the information involved.” The firm noted it had engaged third party specialists to conduct an investigation and declined further comment.
Navigate360 describes itself on its website as the “leading provider of innovative tips and leads solutions” catering to law enforcement, federal agencies, military organizations, and school safety initiatives.
The hacker included a vulgar anti-police phrase in their announcement and advised the public, “Don’t do the dirty work for the pigs.” In messages exchanged with journalists, the individual revealed they had seized control of a P3 customer account using social engineering methods and then leveraged a system vulnerability to siphon out the data.
Straight Arrow News broke the story and indicated that reporters had validated portions of the compromised material by making contact with tipsters whose identifying details were contained in the files.
The transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets, an organization that curates leaked and hacked documents, acknowledged receiving the dataset and announced plans to provide access to “established journalists and researchers.”
Emma Best, the group’s founder, declared that the material “provides excruciating detail” about a tip gathering infrastructure that “seeks to make everyone an informant.”
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
