FBI: Spike in Hacked Police Emails, Fake Subpoenas
Summary: The FBI issued an alert warning that cybercriminals are increasingly using hacked police and government email accounts to send fraudulent emergency data requests (EDRs) to U.S. technology companies, with a rise in criminal forum postings selling stolen police email credentials and EDR services. One vendor using the handles "Pwnstar" and "Pwnipotent" sells fake EDRs for $1,000 to $3,000 per successful request and claims access to government emails from more than 25 countries, while Kodex reported processing 1,597 EDRs over 12 months, with 485 failing second-level verification and nearly 4,000 law enforcement users suspended.
Key Takeaway: Verizon reported receiving more than 127,000 law enforcement demands for customer data in the second half of 2023, including over 36,000 EDRs, and provided records in response to roughly 90 percent of requests - a compliance rate that fake EDRs are built to exploit.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Cybercrime & Law Enforcement
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