Law enforcement tools company targeted following alleged data breach

The web site of ODIN Intelligence LLC, a supplier of legislation enforcement instruments together with a intercourse offender monitoring system, was defaced on the weekend after it was claimed that the corporate was exposing legislation enforcement information on-line.

First reported by TechCrunch, the web site was defaced with a message that said “ACAB” and “no nations! no borders! we’re all unlawful.” An extra message said that “all information and backups have been shredded” suggesting that these behind the assault had deleted information on the webserver internet hosting the web site.

The assault on the corporate’s web site adopted a report from Wired on Jan. 11 that claimed that SweepWizard, an utility supplied by ODIN that’s utilized by police to focus on intercourse offenders, is leaking information on the open web. The report claims that personal details about suspects was simply accessible and could possibly be utilized by suspects to keep away from arrest or elevate suspicion of people that haven’t been convicted of any crime.

The info leak is alleged to have been in depth, together with confidential particulars about tons of of sweeps from dozens of police departments over a number of years. Knowledge discovered included figuring out details about tons of of officers and suspects, together with dwelling addresses, contact info and infrequently Social Safety numbers. The report states that the info “was seemingly uncovered because of a easy misconfiguration within the app,” suggesting one other case of incorrectly protected cloud storage.

ODIN was beforehand within the information final yr when it was discovered to be advertising facial recognition expertise for figuring out homeless individuals. The advertising pitch for the ODIN Homeless Administration Data System used language that was alleged by some to be callous and degrading.

“Third-party distributors and suppliers are literally the Achilles’ heel of legislation enforcement companies,” Dr. Ilia Kolochenko, founding father of utility safety firm ImmuniWeb SA and a member of Europol Knowledge Safety Specialists Community, informed SiliconANGLE. “Per se, a web site defacement is a low-risk safety incident, largely finishing up reputational penalties. On this case, nonetheless, there are numerous indicators that the web site defacement could also be simply the tip of the iceberg of a serious information breach.”

“If confirmed, the alleged intrusion could also be probably the most dangerous information breaches of 2023 given the extremely confidential and labeled nature of the knowledge that might have been compromised by the attackers,” Kolochenko added. “If legislation enforcement intelligence information results in the palms of organized crime, it could result in tragic penalties for law enforcement officials and undercover brokers.

Picture: ODIN Intelligence