This article was produced with support from the Capitol Forum.
Hackers have stolen data related to a specific part of telecommunications giant Verizon marketed to government agencies and first responders, and are advertising that data for sale on a Russian-language cybercrime forum, 404 Media has learned.
The breach does not appear to impact the main consumer Verizon network. The hackers broke into a third party provider and stole data on Verizon’s push-to-talk (PTT) systems, which are a separate product marketed towards public sector agencies, enterprises, and small businesses to communicate internally. The breach is not nearly as severe as some other recent hacks of AT&T or T-Mobile, but the news still presents a significant event for Verizon, due to the fact the hackers are not state-sponsored but instead come from a community of mostly young cybercriminals which continues to compromise massive American tech and telecommunications companies, highlighting lapse security practices by the telecoms.
“To be specific the data is from their PTT network which is used by corporations, government, first responders, and much more,” the person advertising the data, called cyberphantom, told 404 Media in an online chat. Cyberphantom said they were working with Waifu, who also uses the handle Judische, and who was responsible for some of the largest breaches in recent history, including AT&T and Ticketmaster.