Hackers Are Leaking Argentinian Police Data on the Dark Web [Updated]

• A new data dump has appeared on the dark web, featuring revealing information belonging to the Argentinian police.
• The files that have been exposed include officer images, emails, documents, crime reports, and wiretap recordings.
• The implications of this data breach are dire for both the police and its investigation subjects.

Cyble reports that hundreds of gigabytes of data that seems to belong to the Argentinian Police (Policía Federal Argentina – PFA) are now on the dark web. More specifically, the firm that keeps an eye on what is published on the dark web has found a 259GB data dump. It includes highly confidential information such as emails, documents, wiretap recordings, photos of police officials, crime case reports, and various other data that was never meant to see the light.

PFA is the national civil police force of the Argentinian federal government, so it has jurisdiction over the entire country. That said, the files that have been leaked concern numerous nation-wide cases, high-standing officers who are involved in serious proceedings, and even documents that would be useful as proof in court. That said, this leak has dire consequences for a large number of individuals, parties, and entities.

First, many police officers have had their faces exposed, which, especially in the case of secret agents, is quite a risk for them. Secondly, whatever incriminating data the police held concerning ongoing cases are now exposed, giving the crime actors and their advocates the chance to prepare their cases against it. Thirdly, convicted individuals have suffered a privacy breach, which is something that has multiple adverse effects. Fourthly, with the exposure of the emails, phishing actors now have the template, letterhead, and format of what the PFA is using. Finally, the wiretap recordings can reveal unlawful acts from the police’s side, can expose the privacy of the targets, and can compromise ongoing cases.

All that said, the particular dump brings multiple and severe implications for both the Argentinian Police and the main subjects of ongoing or even past investigations. Cyble doesn’t know exactly how and when the hackers managed to get their hands on this data, but the date of publication on the dark web is March 12, 2020. It means that the dump has been circulating on the dark web for almost two months now, which is an ample amount of time for hundreds of users to copy it. PFA hasn’t issued a response to these revelations or made any relevant announcements either on their site or on their social media channels, so they could be investigating or just plainly ignoring the breach.

Cyber-security expert "KELA" has reached out and shared the following interesting information regarding the above story:

"The database was published on the leaks website Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDOS), and quoted as originating in an August 2019 publication of a Hacktivist group calling themselves "La Gorra Leaks 2.0". This group has opened short lived Telegram and Twitter channels to declare they had data from the PFA and also shared it over those channels and on a dedicated .onion website. The screenshot below is from the DDOS website announcing the addition of this dataset to their database. The announcement was made on March 12, 2020."