Sources: data obtained through fake legal requests have been used to harass women and sexually extort minors; Meta, Apple, Google, and others handed over data
Major technology companies have been duped into providing sensitive personal information about their customers in response …
BloombergWilliam Turton
Context & Ripple Effects
The reported harm extends the earlier disclosure that Apple, Meta and Discord had responded to forged emergency data requests. Related coverage also described attackers using compromised law-enforcement email accounts to send requests that providers rapidly fulfilled.
The episode sits alongside a longer privacy-operations problem: companies collecting and releasing large volumes of user information have faced scrutiny over insecure data-access practices, including identity verification in privacy-request workflows.
First-order effects
Women and minors whose personal information was obtained through the fake requests face the immediate reported consequences: harassment and sexual extortion.
Meta, Apple, Google and other providers that released data are implicated in a disclosure process that accepted fraudulent legal requests.
Second-order effects
Providers handling emergency requests face pressure to strengthen authentication of purported law-enforcement senders, particularly because attackers have used hacked law-enforcement email accounts to secure rapid compliance.
The speed expected of emergency disclosure channels becomes a security trade-off for platforms: faster responses can leave less room to detect forged requests.
Third-order effects
If fraudulent emergency requests continue to yield sensitive data, legal-process compliance will increasingly be judged not only by responsiveness to authorities but by the integrity of the verification boundary around those requests.
The pattern points toward privacy governance in which companies must treat data-release workflows as a high-risk access-control system, alongside user-facing privacy rights and government demands.
The trend: Emergency data-disclosure systems are becoming a central privacy-security boundary as attackers exploit trust in legal-process channels.
SCOOP: Major technology companies have provided user data in response to fraudulent legal requests that has been used in schemes to sexually extort minors. Apple, Facebook, Google, Snapchat, Twitter, Discord all provided data. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
holy hell. “In a few instances, the victims have been pressured to carve the perpetrator's name into their skin and share photographs of it.” https://www.bloomberg.com/...
#BigTech claims to be the sole arbiter of cybersecurity, yet its actions have consistently led to the sexual exploitation of minors. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Alphabet, Apple, Twitter, Meta among companies that complied with forged requests, handing over sensitive user data that was used to target women and minors, in some case pressuring them to share sexually explicit material, people told @WilliamTurton https://twitter.com/...
This story is based on interviews with dozens of people, including four federal law enforcement officials and two industry investigators. The six people requested anonymity to speak frankly about cases involves underage victims. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@dellcam It's very cool and good when the best solution to a tech-related problem is, “throw all your devices into the ocean and move into a solitary cave in the woods.”
Really scary and a great reminder of how important it is for law enforcement agencies to secure their email systems. Your identity is a key that can unlock some seriously sensitive data. https://twitter.com/...
Hackers used fake emergency data requests to fool major tech companies into giving up personal data on women, some of which were underage, which they then used to extort and harass them. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
These EDRs were wielded by “sextoritionists” - sexual criminals who blackmail their victims into performing sex acts on camera; videos of these sex acts are used as leverage for increasingly extreme extortion demands. 5/
The fraudulently obtained data has been used to target specific women and minors, and in some cases to pressure them into creating and sharing sexually explicit material and to retaliate against them if they refuse. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
It is particularly unsettling since the attackers are successfully impersonating law enforcement officers. The tactic is impossible for victims to protect against, as the best way to avoid it would be to not have an account on the targeted service. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
a new class of harassment nightmare for women and girls that is impossible to defend against... Data From Fake Legal Requests Used to Sexually Extort Minors (FB, GOOG, TWTR) https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Facebook, Apple, Google, Snap, Twitter and Discord have all been tricked with fake EDRs into giving up sensitive information about underage children, according to a @Business report by @WilliamTurton. https://www.bloomberg.com/... 4/
It is critical that tech companies verify all purported law enforcement “emergency access” requests for user data, by a separate channel than the original request. If they email, call to confirm at the agency's public number - which you independently find. https://www.bloomberg.c…
After all, if someone's in mortal danger, there's no time to stop and verify the cop's identity: https://pluralistic.net/... Children don't just abuse EDRs, they're also *abused* with EDRs. 3/
Criminals *love* EDRs. Once a crook breaks into a police email server (something so easy that the children running the LAPSUS$ crime-gang did it several times), they can send their own EDRs to online services, who will dutifully dox their own users. 2/
30. Google, Facebook, and Apple were all duped into releasing information used to harass and sexually extort minors. Economies of scale! https://www.bloomberg.com/...
More evidence in this story of why people should be warier of tech giants and how irresponsible they are with data. Considering how much El*n relies on government contracts for his subsidies/profits, he would be even looser with user data imo https://www.bloomberg.com/...
“Major technology companies have been duped into providing sensitive personal information about their customers in response to fraudulent legal requests, and the data has been used to harass and even sexually extort minors...” https://twitter.com/...
Dumbfuck tech companies helping stalkers. God help the victims (specific children and women) whose personal content was shared by big tech with their abusers. I hope the victims are alive and SUE. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
FB, Google and Apple employ thousands of brilliant people, yet they can be duped by fake cops into giving up information that leads to doxxing and sexual extortion of innocent minors. Via @WilliamTurton https://www.bloomberg.com/...