3 Interesting Articles

A Police App Exposed Secret Details About Raids and Suspects 

Wired: The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and other police departments in California have been using an app called SweepWizard to coordinate various operations and raids. Unbeknownst to them, SweepWizard has been leaking confidential information and details through the years, including geographic locations for suspects, and personally identifying information on thousands of suspects and officers, to the internet. The police were unaware that the app was leaking confidential details to the internet and security experts believe this happened due to a simple misconfiguration on the app. As of recently, SweepWizard’s website is down and the app is no longer available on Google Play or the Apple’s App Store. 

Twitter Says ‘No Evidence’ User Data Being Sold Online Came From Hack 

Variety:  Last month a hacker claimed to offer over 400 million user emails and phone numbers for sale on the black market.  After an investigation regarding this alleged hack, Twitter announced that “no evidence” was found that the data was exposed due to vulnerabilities in its systems. A Twitter blog post provided details and stated that the data was already publicly available through different sources. 

Hackers leak sensitive files after attack on San Francisco transit police 

NBC News: Over 120,000 files from San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) Police Department were leaked, including six unredacted reports of child abuse. Uploaded information also included mental health records on individuals and hiring documents for prospective officers. While still rare, cyber extortion attacks on police departments are becoming more common and more than 100 networks associated with local government agencies were successfully attacked by hackers last year. 

2 Stats You Should Know

The global cybersecurity market is worth $173.5 billion (source)

The global cyber insurance market is worth over $9.2 billion (source)

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