News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by michaelt on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @11:46AM (#37224433)
> “On the very rare occasion where we confirm misuse of TLOxp, we coordinate with law enforcement to help prosecute those responsible,” TransUnion added.

This is categorically false.

I've had transunion hand my entire credit report over to hackers who had nothing but public information, and transunion absolutely do not give a shit.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by tromp on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @12:05PM (#37224690)
I hope you can coordinate with law enforcement to help prosecute those at TransUnion responsible...
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by megabless123 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @12:55PM (#37225474)
law enforcement largely do not care either
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by e40 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:19PM (#37225827)
Largely? They give absolutely zero shits.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by Consultant32452 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:21PM (#37225859)
They really enjoy laughing at you.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by dixie_land on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:34PM (#37226026)
So in a sense they do care :)
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by jmprspret on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @06:32PM (#37229458)
Put some of their names into these services. Cops, feds. Lookup some high-profile court cases, see if you can get names of witnesses.

Now let's see if they care.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by wmf on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @09:47PM (#37230921)
If they start to care they'll shoot the messenger which in this case is you. Don't poke the bear.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by Eisenstein on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @10:16PM (#37231121)
This is why someone who has a large stage should do it, like a journalist or a performer or a politician. They can't come after them without Streisand effecting it.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by tiffanyg on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:40PM (#37226885)
"Well, they forced my hand, I'm going to call the police..."

https://youtu.be/lehmQ5mUveg?t=20s

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by gottorf on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @12:14PM (#37224818)
If you have the means, perhaps a civil suit against TransUnion for their tortious actions is appropriate. Of course, it's a gigantic hassle.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by adolph on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @12:31PM (#37225090)
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by jstarfish on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:01PM (#37225576)
Your grievance is misguided.

Transunion can't do shit about some Belarusian teenager stealing your identity any more than anybody can indict them for deploying ransomware on government networks. The framework for prosecution of international cybercrime does not exist.

Domestically, Transunion absolutely will shut down access to data furnishers who do not vet employees, in cases where an employee is bored and looking up their exes and random celebrities. It is a violation of the FCRA and subjects the bureau and the furnisher to fines. The bored employee scenario usually just results in termination but if there are other factors at play like identity theft/fraud, law enforcement absolutely gets involved.

This rogue employee scenario is the mechanic I'm guessing is being exploited here, only it seems crowdsourced to obfuscate attribution (so one person isn't making hundreds of fraudulent requests that gets them noticed).

This stuff happens at Equifax all the time too. People are always trying to look up Donald Trump, athletes and rappers in misguided attempts to see how much money they have or where they live. (Celebs have taken to getting around this by buying properties in relatives' names.)

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by michaelt on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:16PM (#37225790)
> Your grievance is misguided.

I'm not sure what makes you think that, given you don't know any of the details involved.

In my case, TransUnion received credit checks for me with dates of birth 1 Jan, 2 Jan, 3 Jan, 4 Jan and so on until they hit upon my date of birth, then a credit account was opened that same day, then later in the day a third party credit monitoring agency accessed my credit report and they were allowed to pass 'knowledge based authentication' using their knowledge of that credit account.

I am completely sure TransUnion could have detected and foiled this incredibly obvious attack. I'm also completely sure they could have identified other victims of the same attackers and informed them, but they chose not to.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by ajmurmann on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:35PM (#37226036)
TransUnion also has full control over what authentication mechanism they use. On the extreme end, they could require a Yubikey to be used. However, they deem the hassle to implement better auth not to be worth it while it's users who carry the cost of TransUnion's inability to properly authenticate people.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by mrguyorama on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:52PM (#37226293)
They also see zero reason to spend even a dime on better security of processes when they saw that the entire company could be pwned and distributed on the dark web and you end up losing zero revenue, maybe a million bucks in a class action suit.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by NoZebra120vClip on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:06PM (#37226488)
Are they vulnerable to SSPR Abuse? I'm having great fun reporting to Very Large Services and being rebuffed because they don't understand or care.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by cognaitiv on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:32PM (#37225998)
KBA must die.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by gopher_space on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:23PM (#37226680)
> I am completely sure TransUnion could have detected and foiled this incredibly obvious attack. I'm also completely sure they could have identified other victims of the same attackers and informed them, but they chose not to.

It's entirely possible that nobody at TransUnion knows how to achieve this given the state of their databases' and/or staff. For example, maybe their system was set up before constraints were a thing and they stopped development once it started printing money, so the only person "working" on it does light maintenance as a portion of their other duties.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by hanniabu on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:08PM (#37225671)
> Transunion can't do shit

They can but they don't. There being no framework for prosecution doesn't mean it's impossible to not hand out data to anybody that asks with minimal info provided.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by alistairSH on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:58PM (#37226389)
lolwut?

The criminal made a false request for credit report. TU released the credit history without confirming ID. The bank relied on that credit report to extend credit.

The problem is, as a whole, ruining the credit of a few thousand people/year (and making them jump through hoops to regain their ID) is less costly than clamping down. TU absolutely contributes to the problem; they just have no incentive to fix it.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by temac on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:00PM (#37226418)
That kind of unbounded massive privacy violation would result in million € fines (if not dozen or hundreds of millions) under GDPR law. And it was already not possible at scale in major European countries before GDPR. What permit it to happen in the USA at scale, is that the baseline of protections is so low compared to Europe. Depending on the state it is getting better, but there is still this culture about making massive files on everybody about everything and then selling them to anybody who ask and pay. Such databases are often forbidden in Europe to begin with because we think of what could happen if they are misused.

The notion that the fault would completely be on a "Belarusian teenager stealing your identity" and no responsibility whatsoever on people organising a system of massive private data collection in the first place, and then not even able to keep such data secure, is ludicrous. And even when you know that privacy invasion is attempted all the time you don't reach the conclusion that at the very least better securing the data would be needed, that task I'm not sure can be done by any "Belarusian teenager" - and that task has de-facto not be done by whoever is collecting and maintaining the private data that has leaked and is still leaking.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by Nextgrid on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:47PM (#37226958)
> That kind of unbounded massive privacy violation would result in million € fines (if not dozen or hundreds of millions) under GDPR law

No they wouldn't. GDPR enforcement is severely lacking and the regulators tasked with enforcing it are either incompetent or corrupt.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by martin8412 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:38PM (#37226865)
If they aren't responsible enough to handle the data, then they shouldn't have it in the first place. The end. Fine them out of existence if they hand over PII to random 3rd parties.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by FFP999 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:52PM (#37226291)
I bet if there were meaningful consequences for sloppy custody of data (i.e. fines large enough to hurt, as opposed to the "LOL whoopsie doopsie have some free credit monitoring" nonsense), credit bureaus would clean up their act. I do not anticipate this happening anytime soon.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by tornato7 on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:17PM (#37226611)
Free credit monitoring for a year, then ato-renews at $89.99/yr after that. Oh, and to sign up for credit monitoring you have to share even more personal data with them, but they pinky promise not to lose it this time.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by polygamous_bat on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:01PM (#37226426)
Exactly, what reason do they have for being more careful if there's nothing to lose and everything to gain for them?
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by hammock on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @01:55PM (#37226335)
>transunion absolutely do not give a shit.

I'm sure they would respond to a subpoena if you were willing to work with an attorney

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by ansible on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:02PM (#37226432)
The GP would need to see if they have ever used any Transunion service. There is probably a click-wrap agreement that you can't sue for basically any reason. Maybe it will go to arbitration, where they won't do squat for regular people.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by Eisenstein on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @10:19PM (#37231139)
I mean, you can literally sue anyone for any reason. There is no agreement you can sign that could possibly stop you.
Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by nenaoki on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @02:33PM (#37226801)
They even say so themselves; "on the very rare occasion where we confirm misuse."

They're not saying anything about how much they care about or follow-up on confirmation.

Re:The Secret Weapon Hackers Can Use to Dox Nearly Anyone in... by cwkoss on Tuesday August 22, 2023 @03:09PM (#37227232)
It can be true if they intentionally never confirm any or even investigate potential misuse