Hacker accidentally hacks into Epstein’s FBI files

US Israel’s war with Iran has been going on for two weeks, and bombs continue to fall. But many Iranian missiles fail to hit their targets. WIRED’s Middle East team detailed how countries in the Gulf region are intercepting these weapons.

Of course, international conflict does not occur only in the physical sphere. This week, a hacker group linked to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence disrupted the systems of US-based medical technology company Stryker. The attack carried out by a group now known as Handala has been particularly active since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. We have detailed how Handala sowed chaos through “opportunistic” attacks that appear to be hacker activity but are believed to be part of an Iranian state-backed campaign.

Hacking is not the only type of war-related cyber attack disrupting life in the Middle East and beyond. The rise of GPS attacks has made some basic activities, such as using navigation apps or ordering food from a delivery service, nearly impossible for people in countries near Iran.

Meta this week took steps to further crack down on the influx of scammers on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. In addition to the new warnings for people using meta apps, the company said it removed nearly 11 million accounts linked to “criminal scam centers” last year.

The US Department of Homeland Security has quietly fired two privacy officials at the agency after they suspected it was mislabeling some records related to surveillance and other technology in ways that would prevent them from being released to the public. Experts described the misnomer as “illegal”. A new bill in Congress aims to stop the FBI’s practice of warrantless access to Americans’ private communications, and end the government’s practice of purchasing people’s data in ways that critics say circumvent Fourth Amendment protections.

But that’s not all! Every week we round up security and privacy news that we haven’t covered in depth ourselves. Click on the titles to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

Three years ago, a hacker compromised a server full of emails, photos, and other assorted documents stored on a mysterious server. The hacker was so horrified by the material that appeared to contain images of child abuse that the hacker left a message threatening to turn over the evidence to the FBI.

It turns out that what this hacker didn’t know was that the server He was FBI – and the data it stored was actually the entire set of evidence collected in the criminal case of convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, what is known today as the Epstein Files.

Reuters reported this week that a foreign hacker inadvertently accessed those files after they were left exposed on an FBI server at a forensic child exploitation laboratory due to a security oversight that later became the subject of an internal FBI investigation. The FBI confirmed the incident to Reuters, describing it as “isolated,” but Reuters was unable to determine the consequences for the hacker or whether any of the data had been stolen or tampered with. When the hacker threatened to report the owners of child abuse materials, FBI agents went so far as to meet the hacker on a video call to explain the situation, and showed off their FBI credentials to prove their bona fides.

When it promised to help men quit watching porn by letting them track when they did it, Quittr ended up with highly detailed records of hundreds of thousands of users’ detailed masturbation logs. Then she exposed them online, leaving them exposed even after a warning from an independent security researcher. The researcher told 404 Media last January that they had access to Quittr data on about 600,000 users, about 100,000 of whom appeared to be minors. The disclosed data included their ages, how often they masturbated, and a description of their porn habits and experiences. The security researcher warned the company about the security issue last September, and the app creator said it would be fixed “in the next hour.” Instead, it remained unrepaired for several months. (404 Media waited until the fix was confirmed to name the app, to avoid helping hackers identify a target for data theft and potential blackmail.) Meanwhile, the app’s creators appeared in a New York Magazine profile about their lifestyle, which includes driving luxury cars and living in a mansion in Miami.

Amid Iranian missile and drone strikes across the Middle East in response to the US and Israeli bombing campaign, Dubai police have arrested a 60-year-old British man and accused him of filming an Iranian missile attack on his phone. According to Detained in Dubai, an organization that provides legal aid in the country, the man is one of 21 people accused of publishing or sharing videos related to the missile strikes under the UAE’s cybercrime laws, which prohibit publishing videos that disturb public security. “We are seeing more and more people being charged under cybercrime rules in the UAE,” Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, told the BBC, adding that the arrest was likely part of an attempt to “maintain the façade that it is safe for tourists” in Dubai, even as the war in the region escalates.

Two Dutch intelligence agencies, the General Intelligence and Security Service and the Defense Intelligence and Security Service, issued a joint cybersecurity notice warning the public that Russian state hackers are running a “large-scale global cyber campaign” to gain access to the Signal and WhatsApp accounts of persons of interest to the Russian government, including Dutch government employees and possibly journalists.

The Dutch notice says Russian hackers may have targeted Signal in particular because its reputation as a secure app makes it an “attractive channel” for communication between government officials.