Tag: U.S. Customs and Border Control

US Border Control – traveler photos and license plate images stolen in a data breach

11. June 2019

U.S. Customs and Border Control (CBP) announced on Monday, 10th June 2019, that photos of travelers, their cars and their license plate images were stolen during a data breach.

The network of CBP itself was not affected by the breach, but the photos were transferred to a subcontractor and stolen by a hack at the subcontractor. The name of the subcontractor was not mentioned. According to US media reports, the subcontractor is Perceptics which was hacked in May 2019.

CBP announced: “CBP learned that a subcontractor, in violation of CBP policies and without CBP’s authorization or knowledge, had transferred copies of license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP to the subcontractor’s company network.”  CBP has not terminated its cooperation with the hacked subcontractor despite breaches of data protection and security regulations.

CBP was informed about the breach on 31st May 2019. The breach affects nearly 100.000 people who travelled the USA. Besides the photos of travelers, their cars and license plates neither passport or other travel documents nor images of airline passengers were involved. The photos show travellers crossing either the US border to Canada or Mexico.

Until now, the hacked data could neither be found on the Internet nor in the Dark net.