Babylon: A source that has been named Babylon provided over 97 GB of data, allegedly stolen from Formations House to the darknet website Distributed Denial of Secrets. Formations House is a firm that sets up companies for “ultra-wealthy” businessmen for international transactions. The current release of data includes a significant number of files, as well as over 100,000 recorded phone calls between Formations House and their clients, with more data expected to be released. The dump has been dubbed “#29Leaks”, after the Formation House’s original address at 29 Harley Street in London. The majority of the data contained in the breach comes from pre-2016 when Formations House was still located at that address. Distributed Denial of Secrets has set up a search feature so that users may comb through the data without having to download the entire breach. The feature is slow-moving and hides some results from unregistered users but currently appears to function effectively.
Analyst Notes
This breach has many similarities to the 2016 release of the “Panama Papers” following the breach of Mossack Fonseca. It is likely that news reporters will not be the only ones analyzing the data–criminals will also seek to capitalize on the data for extortion attempts against individuals and organizations named in the breach. It is also possible that an uptick, however brief, will be seen in hacktivists targeting the people and organizations contained in the #29Leaks, similar to what occurred following the Panama Papers release. More information on the data dump can be found at: https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/global-offshore-corporate-networks-exposed-in-massive-data-leak/