I used P3’s own site to find the tips page for my local Philly “Fusion Center”, clicked “Continue” and was immediately redirected to the “Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers Tips Hotline” instead. Not confidence-inspiring.
In its release note, Internet Yiff Machine says the data contains 8.3 million tips and that P3 lacks many security features, including rate-limiting requests as hackers have reportedly infiltrated the entire database. “No joke, I sent over 8 million requests pulling all their data and encountered no issues whatsoever,” the note said.
The group expressed anti-police ideology, stating that “Every policeman plays a role in carrying out the orders of billionaires, politicians, and corporations” and “We are made of copper wire, motherboards, fur, and homosexuality. Fight fascists. Hack the police, government, corporations, and billionaires.”
Who knows what that means these days; This whole thing could be a hack of a nation-state, using internet-speech to cover up the real goal of instigating division. However, it appears that the data has not been released publicly, so this may actually be an old-school hacktivist attack.
Is Data Leak Legit? Navigate360, which owns P3, would not confirm that the breach actually occurred, telling Straight Arrow News only that a digital forensics company had been hired to investigate. The company has not responded to my requests for an update as a week has passed since the initial report.
However, some agencies are already treating it like a real hack. Portland, Oregon city police announced on March 19 that, “out of an abundance of caution, [we are] “Encouraging community members to temporarily refrain from submitting tips through the Crime Stoppers platform.”
Education Week also covered this story, as over 35,000 schools use P3’s service – and thus the leaked data may be full of information about suicide threats, bullying and drugs. (The three top types of school tips according to P3.)
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