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Perceptics Breach May Have Multi-National Effects

Boris Bullet-Dodger: The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) has announced they are opening an investigation into the work done by contracting firm Perceptics. This announcement comes following the announcement this week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that Perceptics had illegally copied part of their photo database. That data was subsequently stolen by the hacker Boris Bullet-Dodger. CBSA utilizes the same license plate reader technology as CBP along the U.S. Canadian border. A spokesman for CBSA stated that “to this point, there have not been serious implications for CBSA’s information, but obviously CBSA is concerned about the quality of the services that are provided to it and they are investigating all the ramifications”. CBSA utilizes Perceptics not only for their license plate reader technology but also for radio frequency identification services.

Risks do not only come from direct attacks but also from information which is accessible to third-party assets such as subcontractors. The information which third parties are able to freely access or copy can save an attacker a lot of time and effort, especially if that contractor does not have a strong security infrastructure in place.

At this time CBP and CBSA are the only government agencies that have expressed a direct impact or a concern over the attack however they are not the only government agencies to utilize Perceptics service.

Analyst Notes

It is possible that as the investigation into the Perceptics breach continues that other agencies may have data exposed or will begin to express concern.