Legality of OSINT and Data Aggregators Hoarding Leaked Data?
Legality of OSINT and Data Aggregators Hoarding Leaked Data?
I was listening to a Bazzell podcast where he mentions his company self hosting and maintaining a database of personal data and credentials for use in OSINT investigations. Some acquired through public sources but others acquired through leaks. Then of course there are data aggregate companies that do the same but are going on to sell this data for a profit.
What is the legality of this? Obviously acquiring publicly available data is legal, but how are these companies able to hold on to leaked usernames, passwords, and other confidential personal information. Especially those that were initially acquired through illegal means?
It would potentially fall under "fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine" that would make it inadmissable for actual court cases but otherwise there's nothing to stop people from gathering information that is available to the public
And this is why it is important to poison the PII databases.
I feel like someone needs to set up a project with scrambled PII mixed with totally fictitious PII and then “leak” it in chunks such that overall confidence in these databases approaches zero over time.
Would be basically impossible. Most of what is leaked these days is just rebundled from other leaks. For example if you listened to MB on this its only a small % of data from new leaks that actually ends being new info.
Any attempt of doing something like this would prove to be trash data pretty quickly and would not have a major effect.
Possessing PII is not illegal... it's only a problem for whoever leaked it originally. This is why some sites regularly host doxx info and never get taken down, even after many legal demands.
Depends. According to the GDPR for any processing of PII you need consent from the data subject or a reasonable basis why you have to act upon the data (your servers communicating with an IP adress is neccesary for your service to function). Saving the adress isn't, so you need consent or other legislation under which you're required to store it that trumps the GDPR. That's the so-called "overriding legitimate interest". It doesn't mean "interest = money", "data = money" therefore "data retention = overruling legitimate interest".
Keeping leaked data or scraping it from public sources is still problematic since you do nees consent.
If you're approached as a 3rd party by someone with data who sells them to you you are obliged to make sure the data you're given has been aquired with consent. Often times checks aren't in place, and ultimately, if you're given "bad data" by the intermediary you cab always claim they kenw they should've notified you but didn't.
If you're scraping leaks, well, there's no one between you and the data subject who can take the fall. You've knowingly collected "bad data" unilaterally.
Indeed I don't know enough about the EU or GDPR to say definitively, but I know for the US, there is generally nothing wrong with possessing leaked data, or it would not be so commonplace. There are often many online articles that discuss leaked data in depth, so you know they have it, and nobody is suing them for it. The NPD leak check site also appears to be legal and hasn't been challenged to my knowledge, and it even gives out people's complete address history and phone numbers, as well as partial SSN and DOB. There are also sites that regularly host "doxx" of people they like to make fun of, as well as leaked corporate IP, for years, and nothing has happened to them either.
Obviously acquiring publicly available data is legal
Under the EU GDPR it is often not legal. Controllers need a legal basis, which only exists if there is an appropriate relationship between the controller and the data subject.