A data broker owned by some of America’s biggest airlines has been selling access to customer flight data to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The data, compiled by data broker Airlines Reporting Corporation (ARC), includes names, flight itineraries, and financial details. It also covers flights booked via US travel agencies. ARC makes this data available to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), both of which were previously known as the US Customs Service until 2003, and both of which are offices under DHS. ARC is owned and operated by eight major US airlines and is unique in being the only financial intermediary between the airline industry and US travel agencies, according to the data broker’s contract with ICE.
Read more…
Source: Malwarebytes Labz
Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- Texas Courts Won’t Pay Up in Ransomware Attack
May 14, 2020
A ransomware attack has hit the information technology office that supports Texas appellate courts and judicial agencies, leading to their websites and computer servers being shut down. The office said that it will not pay the ransom requested by the cybercriminals. Specifically affected is the Office of Court Administration (OCA), which is the IT provider for ...
- SilverTerrier: New COVID-19 Themed Business Email Compromise Schemes
May 7, 2020
Focusing on one of the most active subsets of the global threat landscape, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 tracks Nigerian cyber criminals involved in Business Email Compromise (BEC) activities under the name SilverTerrier. Over the past 90 days (Jan. 30 – Apr. 30), we have observed three SilverTerrier actors/groups launch a series of 10 COVID-19 themed ...
- DDoS attacks in Q1 2020
May 6, 2020
Since the beginning of 2020, due to the COVID-2019 pandemic, life has shifted almost entirely to the Web — people worldwide are now working, studying, shopping, and having fun online like never before. This is reflected in the goals of recent DDoS attacks, with the most targeted resources in Q1 being websites of medical organizations, ...
- US offers $5 million reward for information on North Korean hackers
April 15, 2020
The US government is willing to pay up to $5 million for information on North Korea’s hackers and their ongoing hacking operations. The reward for reporting North Korean hackers was announced today in a joint report published by the Departments of State, Treasury, Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The joint report contains a summary ...
- US government agencies have shadow IT infrastructure problem, cybersecurity risks, says GAO
March 5, 2020
Federal agencies are facing increasing cybersecurity risks due to a bevy of IT facilities aren’t being tracked as full-fledged data centers, according to a General Accountability Office report. As noted previously, federal agencies have been consolidating and closing data centers over the years, but a narrower definition of what facilities should fall under an optimization program means that ...
- Swiss encryption company secretly owned by U.S. and German intelligence agencies
February 11, 2020
The U.S. intelligence community actively monitored for decades the diplomatic and military communications of numerous Latin American nations through encryption machines supplied by a Swiss company that was secretly owned by the CIA and the German intelligence agency, BND, according to reports today by the German public television channel, ZDF and the Washington Post. Declassified records ...

