- PSG held by Nice to leave Monaco clear at top of Ligue 1
- AC Milan fall at Fiorentina after De Gea's penalty heroics
- Lewandowski treble for leaders Barca as Atletico held
- Fresh Israeli strikes hit south Beirut
- Sucic stunner earns Real Sociedad draw against Atletico
- PSG draw with Nice, fail to reclaim top spot in Ligue 1
- Gudmundsson downs AC Milan after De Gea's penalty heroics for Fiorentina
- 'Yes' vote prevails in Kazakhstan nuclear plant vote: TV
- 'Difficult day': Oct 7 commemorations begin with festival memorial
- Commemorations begin for anniversary of attack on Israel
- Lewandowski hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- 'Nothing gets in way of team,' says Celtics' MVP hopeful Tatum
- India maintain Pakistan stranglehold as Windies cruise at Women's T20 World Cup
- 'We will win!': Mozambique's ruling party confident at final vote rally
- Tunisia voting ends as Saied eyes re-election with critics behind bars
- Florida braces for Milton, FEMA head slams 'dangerous' Helene misinformation
- Postecoglou slams 'unacceptable' Spurs after 'terrible' loss at Brighton
- Marmoush double denies Bayern outright Bundesliga top spot
- Rallies worldwide call for Gaza, Lebanon ceasefire
- Maresca hails Chelsea's 'fighting' spirit after draw with 10-man Forest
- New 'Joker' film, a dark musical, tops N.America box office
- Man Utd stalemate keeps Ten Hag in danger, Spurs rocked by Brighton
- Drowned by hurricane, remote N.Carolina towns now struggle for water
- Vikings hold off Jets in London to stay unbeaten
- Ahead of attack anniversary, Netanyahu says: 'We will win'
- West Indies cruise to T20 World Cup win over Scotland
- Arshdeep, Chakravarthy help India hammer Bangladesh in T20 opener
- Lewandowski's quickfire hat-trick powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Man Utd fire another blank in Aston Villa stalemate
- Lewandowski treble powers Liga leaders Barca to Alaves victory
- Russian activist killed on front line in Ukraine
- Openda strike briefly sends Leipzig top of Bundesliga
- Goal-shy Man Utd have to 'step up', says Ten Hag
- India bowl out Bangladesh for 127 in T20 opener
- Madueke rescues Chelsea in draw with 10-man Forest
- Beckett's belief rewarded as Bluestocking storms to Arc glory
- Trump on the stump, Harris hits airwaves in razor-edge US election
- Flash flooding kills three in northern Thailand
- Kaur leads India to victory over Pakistan in Women's T20 World Cup
- Juventus held by Cagliari after late penalty drama
- In France's Marseille, teen 'stabbed 50 times' then burned alive
- Ruthless Gauff beats Muchova in straight sets to win China Open
- India restrict Pakistan to 105-8 in Women's T20 World Cup
- England target repeat of Pakistan Test whitewash
- Penrith Panthers win fourth straight NRL title after downing Storm
- Weary Sinner happy for day off after battling into Shanghai last 16
- Pakistan's Masood warns England still a force without Stokes
- Madrid's Carvajal to miss several months after serious knee injury
- Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
- Two elephants die in flash flooding in northern Thailand
Hackers got user data from Meta with forged request
Facebook owner Meta gave user information to hackers who pretended to be law enforcement officials last year, a company source said Wednesday, highlighting the risks of a measure used in urgent cases.
Imposters were able to get details like physical addresses or phone numbers in response to falsified "emergency data requests," which can slip past privacy barriers, said the source who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Criminal hackers have been compromising email accounts or websites tied to police or government and claiming they can't wait for a judge's order for information because it's an "urgent matter of life and death," cyber expert Brian Krebs wrote Tuesday.
Bloomberg news agency, which originally reported Meta being targeted, also reported that Apple had provided customer data in response to forged data requests.
Apple and Meta did not officially confirm the incidents, but provided statements citing their policies in handling information demands.
When US law enforcement officials want data on a social media account's owner or an associated cell phone number, they must submit an official court-ordered warrant or subpoena, Krebs wrote.
But in urgent cases authorities can make an "emergency data request," which "largely bypasses any official review and does not require the requestor to supply any court-approved documents," he added.
Meta, in a statement, said the firm reviews every data request for "legal sufficiency" and uses "advanced systems and processes" to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse.
"We block known compromised accounts from making requests and work with law enforcement to respond to incidents involving suspected fraudulent requests, as we have done in this case," the statement added.
Apple noted its guidelines, which say that in the case of an emergency application "a supervisor for the government or law enforcement agent who submitted the... request may be contacted and asked to confirm to Apple that the emergency request was legitimate."
Krebs noted that the lack of a unitary, national system for these type of requests is one of the key problems associated with them, as companies end up deciding how to deal with them.
"To make matters more complicated, there are tens of thousands of police jurisdictions around the world — including roughly 18,000 in the United States alone — and all it takes for hackers to succeed is illicit access to a single police email account," he wrote.
P.Stevenson--AMWN