Here’s something that will not make Apple users freak. I’ll let the Toronto Star tell you the details:
Internet activists claim to have hacked more than 12 million identification codes for Apple devices from an FBI agent’s laptop and have posted instructions on online bulletin board Pastebin on how to access one million of the user IDs.
Known as the Anti Security Movement, or Antisec, the group said on a Twitter account belonging to the Anonymous “hacktivist” collective that many of the IDs come complete with the device owner’s personal information.
In a blog post Tuesday that included attacks on security agencies, Antisec said it withheld information such as names, phone numbers and addresses, but left enough for “users to search for their devices.”
The group did not indicate that bank account numbers or passwords were included.
“During the second week of March 2012 a Dell Vostro notebook used by supervisor special agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java,” Antisec said in the post.
“Some files were downloaded from his desktop folder; one of them with the name of NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv turned out to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including unique device identifiers (UDIDs), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple push notification service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc.”
Antisec said it published the alphanumeric IDs to call attention to the possibility that the FBI had used or was planning to use the information to track citizens.
The FBI was quick to deny this. Here’s what the CBC said:
“The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
“At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”
So the question is, whom do you believe? It really doesn’t matter as even if this is half true, it’s something to be concerned about. If you want to see if you’re on the list, you may want to start here for what the group posted. Advance warning, it’s not for the average person. Hopefully someone will take this data and come up with an easy way to search it.
UPDATE: My wish has been granted. Here’s an easy way to see if you’ve been affected.
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This entry was posted on September 4, 2012 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags antisec, Apple, FBI, hack. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hacker Group antisec Claims Hack Of FBI Laptop Proves FBI Tracking Apple Users [UPDATED]
Here’s something that will not make Apple users freak. I’ll let the Toronto Star tell you the details:
Internet activists claim to have hacked more than 12 million identification codes for Apple devices from an FBI agent’s laptop and have posted instructions on online bulletin board Pastebin on how to access one million of the user IDs.
Known as the Anti Security Movement, or Antisec, the group said on a Twitter account belonging to the Anonymous “hacktivist” collective that many of the IDs come complete with the device owner’s personal information.
In a blog post Tuesday that included attacks on security agencies, Antisec said it withheld information such as names, phone numbers and addresses, but left enough for “users to search for their devices.”
The group did not indicate that bank account numbers or passwords were included.
“During the second week of March 2012 a Dell Vostro notebook used by supervisor special agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached using the AtomicReferenceArray vulnerability on Java,” Antisec said in the post.
“Some files were downloaded from his desktop folder; one of them with the name of NCFTA_iOS_devices_intel.csv turned out to be a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including unique device identifiers (UDIDs), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple push notification service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc.”
Antisec said it published the alphanumeric IDs to call attention to the possibility that the FBI had used or was planning to use the information to track citizens.
The FBI was quick to deny this. Here’s what the CBC said:
“The FBI is aware of published reports alleging that an FBI laptop was compromised and private data regarding Apple UDIDs was exposed,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
“At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data.”
So the question is, whom do you believe? It really doesn’t matter as even if this is half true, it’s something to be concerned about. If you want to see if you’re on the list, you may want to start here for what the group posted. Advance warning, it’s not for the average person. Hopefully someone will take this data and come up with an easy way to search it.
UPDATE: My wish has been granted. Here’s an easy way to see if you’ve been affected.
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This entry was posted on September 4, 2012 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags antisec, Apple, FBI, hack. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.