Hackers have breached Perceptics, which sells border security technology and license plate reader systems and the like to governments and other entities. The U.S. government uses their readers, including along the US-Mexico border.
“The hacker known as 'Boris Bullet-Dodger' has published what appears to be internal data belonging to Perceptics, which provides license plate reader technology for the Mexico border,” reports Motherboard.
Perceptics has contracts with U.S. Customs, The government of Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
Motherboard confirms the breach, and reports that hackers have dumped data online.
“We are aware of the breach and have notified our customers. We can’t comment any further because it is an ongoing legal investigation,” Casey Self, director of marketing for Perceptics said in an online message. The Register first reported the news on Thursday.
The data appears to include a variety of databases, company documents, and financial information, according to the file directory giving an overview of the stolen material. Boris Bullet-Dodger, the hacker who listed the data online, contacted Motherboard with a link to the stolen data on Thursday.
"perceptics.com hacked, dat[a] leak," the hacker wrote in an email.
Perceptics, once a subsidiary of major government contractor Northrop Grumman, mainly distributes license plate readers, under-vehicle cameras, and driver cameras to the U.S., Canada, Mexico to place at border crossings. According to a company slide presentation from 2016, its readers and cameras are designed to be combined with federal “biographic/passport data” of the passengers.
U.S. Customs Service has used Perceptics services since 1982, and the company has had licence plate readers at all U.S.-Mexico border crossings since 2002. The company also has contracts with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Malaysia as well as several U.S. states like New Jersey. According to government contract awards, Perceptics also did business with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2016.
An employee at the company that provides license plate readers to the US government confirmed the breach, said an ongoing investigation. Here is the directory of files the hacker has hosted online https://t.co/NPVBPFWHnI pic.twitter.com/BOmW2jG0V3
— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) May 24, 2019
Haven't updated piece just yet because it may be temporary, but just now the files are returning a Forbidden error; that wasn't the case earlier.
— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) May 24, 2019
PHOTO: Perceptics LPR used by the US Department of Transportation.
