FBI Warned Agents It Believes Phone Logs Hacked Last Year

An anonymous reader shares a report: FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T's system last year stole months of their agents' call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows.

FBI officials told agents across the country that details about their use on the telecom carrier's network were believed to be among the billions of records stolen, according to the document and interviews with a current and a former law enforcement official. They asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information. Data from all FBI devices under the bureau's AT&T service for public safety agencies were presumed taken, the document shows.

The cache of hacked AT&T records didn't reveal the substance of communications but, according to the document, could link investigators to their secret sources. The data was believed to include agents' mobile phone numbers and the numbers with which they called and texted, the document shows. Records for calls and texts that weren't on the AT&T network, such as through encrypted messaging apps, weren't part of the stolen data.

Karma

[markdavis]

And this is what happens when you intentionally put in back doors to systems in the name of "safety" or "security" or whatever they want to call it.

These are the same agencies and politicians that probably want back doors into encryption as well. Imagine how great that would turn out....

Re:

[evanh]

You can thank G.W.Bush & co. for the general attitude. Everyone is still in the terrorism-is-the-bogeyman modus operandi. Lets not fix the causes and just go get'em.

Re:

[Antique Geekmeister]

Much of it predates the anti-terror hysteria of 9/11, but that tragedy was used as a pretext for many grotesque crimes, both war crimes and federal crimes against US citizens.

Re:

[sarren1901]

Terrorism is a wonderful metaphoric "enemy at the gate". China, Iran, and Russia are also great examples of this. They are the boogeymen.

It makes for a nice distraction alongside cultural wars. Better the voters engage in that "important stuff" then question why most of us are getting such a raw deal in this economy. Now that's an impolite question and we just can't have those.

Also, fuck the FBI.

Re: Karma

[paul_engr]

Well if they had a kill switch on encryption, they could maybe slightly better find the bad guys that stole their mountain of data that shouldn't exist in the first place

Cat-flap you could drive a train through

[Kobun]

When they have access like this, is it any wonder that another state-sponsored group can piggyback and get EVERYTHING? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

Re: "confidential informant"

[paul_engr]

More likely low brainpower saps they're encouraging to do terrorism that they otherwise would not have and could not have done on their own.

Re:

[schwit1]

Why do they NEED the logs past 30 days?

Re:

[Antique Geekmeister]

Why would they seek less?

Wait, what?

[Baron_Yam]

The FBI doesn't have a mandatory custom encrypted messaging app that only touches their servers, while logging everything on those servers (and only those servers) for their own records?

That seems like an oversight.

Re:

[F.Ultra]

Well to be fair they talked about CI:s and if a CI would be caught having a special FBI messaging app installed that might be "problematic".

Re:

[Baron_Yam]

I'd expect the phone OS to present the app as the native one. There's no reason it would need to be obvious.

I mean, if we're talking CIs, you're giving them a phone riddled with agency spyware, right?

Re:

[Antique Geekmeister]

"Only touches their servers". No. Backdoors are mandatory. If your system doesn't have them, it faces encryption export regulations.

FBI, CIA, NSA have no credibility

[Antique Geekmeister]

America's intelligence agencies, and federal law enforcement, have no credibility in cybersecurity. As room 641a and Edward Snowden's releases to Wikileaks showed, they monitor communications in bulk and without legal pretext. Since the creation of Homeland Security, their results are shared, capriciously and in secret, and with grotesque incompetence demonstrated by each agency in turn and together.

Confidential call and text logs :o

[Mirnotoriety]

“FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T's system last year stole months of their agents' call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows.”

I don't work in Intelligence but what the fcuk was call and text logs and informants identities even doing on AT&T's system.

Re: Confidential call and text logs :o

[paul_engr]

They don't have specific logs saying "this person is a spy/informant" They do have logs from which someone could ascertain the NETWORKS of people who commingle, the people who drive to the secret FBI meeting spot at the same time, and with enough analysis they can ascertain which people are in cahoots together, presumably the known fbi/whatever and their contacts from which you can ID the secret people by association.