Warning after Apple and Facebook were ‘tricked into revealing private user info by kid hackers posing as police’

HACKING has literally become child’s play.

Facebook owners Meta and Apple were reportedly tricked into giving up private user details by cyber crooks posing as police officers.

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And experts suspect that the backers could be naughty children.

The group managed to get basic details like a customer’s address, phone number and more IP address, Bloomberg reports.

They apparently did it by making fake emergency data requests.

With so many of us online, law enforcement regularly ask tech giants for details relevant to their investigations.

A search warrant or a subpoena signed by the judge is usually required to obtain information.

But in an urgent life-and-death situation, the police can make an emergency request that doesn’t need to be signed off beforehand.

The blip is thought to have happened in mid-2021 – although it’s not clear how often they’ve provided data.

It is also believed that the Snapchat owner received similar fake requests, but it is unknown if they fell for the ruse as well.

Cybersecurity experts believe young people in the UK and US could be behind the attack.

One is suspected of being part of it Lapsus$ hacking grouptargeting companies like Microsoft, Samsung, Nvidia and Ubisoft.

Seven people, aged between 16 and 21, were arrested by City of London Police last week in connection with an investigation into Lapsus$.

Trick is “increasingly common”

Accordingly cancer over safetythe trick on Apple and Meta is becoming more common.

Typically, the attacker needs to get into police email systems to pose as an official law enforcement official.

Some of the fakes sent to Apple and Meta reportedly included fake signatures from real and fake police officers.

Apple’s policies state that a police officer “may be contacted and asked to confirm to Apple that the emergency request was legitimate.”

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said: “We review every data request for legal appropriateness and use advanced systems and processes to validate law enforcement requests and detect abuse.

“We are blocking known compromised accounts from requests and are working with law enforcement to respond to incidents of suspected fraudulent requests, as we did in this case.”

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