Bern police catch seven suspected data thieves
Published: Wednesday, Dec 6th 2023, 16:00
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The Bernese cantonal police say they have tracked down seven people allegedly involved in this summer's data theft. This was announced by the public prosecutor's office and the police on Wednesday.
The story became public in August: Unknown persons had gained access to the names, first names and telephone numbers of all 2800 employees of the Bern Cantonal Police. They exploited a serious security vulnerability in an app that was installed on the smartphones.
The vulnerability was fixed immediately. However, employees were at risk of targeted hacker attacks. Whether data was actually passed on to third parties has not been fully clarified. According to the press release, there are currently no indications of this.
The National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC) announced the vulnerability in the MobileIron app on July 21, 2023. The app is used worldwide to enable employees to connect their laptop to their employer's servers.
Under the direction of the cantonal public prosecutor's office for special tasks, a search has been launched for the people who exploited the security vulnerability to gain access to the app users' data.
House searches
As part of a targeted operation, house searches were also carried out in the cantons of Fribourg, Geneva and Vaud at the end of October, according to the press release. Digital evidence carriers such as IT and mobile devices were seized.
A total of seven suspects were questioned in the course of the investigation. The investigators assume that they were able to clear up all unauthorized access to the database in question from 21 July.
Other people affected
According to the public prosecutor's office, other companies may also have been affected by the security vulnerability. According to earlier media reports, Norwegian government agencies were among the victims of the vulnerability. Several ministries are said to have been attacked.
©Keystone/SDA
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