I used P3’s own site to find the tips page for my local Philly “fusion center,” clicked “continue,” and was immediately sent to the “Greater Kansas City Crime Stoppers TIPS Hotline” instead. Not confidence-inspiring.
In its release note, Internet Yiff Machine says the data contains 8.3 million tips and that P3 lacked numerous security features, not even rate-limiting requests as hackers allegedly exfiltrated the entire database. “No joke, I sent over 8 million requests pulling all their data and didn’t encounter any issues whatsoever,” says the note.
The group expressed an anti-police ideology, saying that “EVERY COP PLAYS A ROLE IN FOLLOWING THE ORDER OF BILLIONAIRES, POLITICIANS, AND CORPORATIONS” and that “we are made of copper wire, motherboards, fur, and homosexuality. Fight the Fascists. Hack the police, the government, corporations and billionaires.”
Who knows what any of that means these days; the whole thing could well be some nation-state hack just using Internet-speak as cover for the real goal of stirring up division. Data does not appear to have been released publicly, though, so this really might be an old-school hacktivist attack.
Is the data leak legitimate? Navigate360, which owns P3, would not confirm that a breach had actually taken place, telling Straight Arrow News only that a digital forensics company has been hired to investigate. The company did not respond to my requests for an update now that a week has passed since the initial report.
Some agencies are already treating this like a real hack, however. Police in the city of Portland, Oregon, announced on March 19 that, “out of an abundance of caution, [we are] encouraging community members to temporarily refrain from submitting tips through the Crime Stoppers platform.”
Education Week even covered the story, since more than 35,000 schools use P3’s service—and thus the leaked data could be stuffed with information on suicide threats, bullying, and drugs. (The three top kinds of school tips, according to P3.)