A security flaw in an app used by all police officers has been used as a trojan. The perpetrators remain unidentified.
Unidentified hackers have managed to get their hands on the names and mobile phone numbers of 2,800 employees of the cantonal police in Bern, Switzerland, authorities said.
It was through a security breach in an application used by all police officers on their smartphones that the hackers had access to this data, explained Friday evening a spokeswoman for the police Flurina Schenk.
“There was a data leak, i.e. the names and phone numbers of employees who have a mobile phone, i.e. everyone,” she said. on public television SRF.
For the time being, it does not appear that the data thus recovered by the hackers has been disseminated more widely, according to the authorities.
Open investigation
The National Center for Cyber Security (NCSC) had informed the Bernese police on July 21 about the security flaw in the “MobileIron” application, but even if the problem was quickly solved, the information had already leaked.
MobileIron, an application widely used in many countries, must allow employees of a company or an administration to connect securely with their mobile devices to the servers of the employer.
The Bernese police say they have no idea of the perpetrators of the data theft but have launched criminal proceedings.