A Twitter spokesperson said the platform permanently suspended the account @DDoSecrets for violating its policy on sharing compromised data. As it became known, the DDoSecrets group shared links to compromised data (BlueLeaks) belonging to about 200 law enforcement agencies US
The Twitter account was used by the activist group, called Distributed Denial of Secrets (DdoSecrets).
Last Friday, the group released a massive amount of data online. DdoSecrets said the data was a “courtesy donation” from the well-known hacktivist group Anonymous.
The data was dubbed BlueLeaks and contained millions of documents stolen from a web hosting provider called Netsential , which was used by many US law enforcement agencies
Subsequent analysis revealed that the BlueLeaks data contained records from more than 200 US, fusion centers, training centers, and other agencies.
This is the largest data breach in America related to law enforcement agencies.
The BlueLeaks files were made available on the DDoSecrets website, but were announced and promoted largely via Twitter.
In an interview, investigative journalist Emma Best, a central figure in DDoSecrets, said the group tried to avoid sharing sensitive information. Best said the group spent a week searching the archives for “particularly sensitive data about crime victims and children, as well as information about non-private businesses, healthcare services and veterans’ retirement organizations.” DDoSecrets did not want to publish such information.
However, Best admitted that some sensitive information may have escaped them and been leaked.
Twitter said the BlueLeaks data did contain information that could put some people at risk.
The company said its policy strictly prohibits the dissemination of infringing material. As a result, Twitter was forced to suspend the account, following established procedures.
The social network has been criticized for its decision to suspend the DdoSecrets account with the BlueLeaks data. Many users pointed out that Twitter waited months or even years before applying the same policy to the accounts of other hacking groups, such as Guccifer 2.0 and TheDarkOverlord.
Additionally, accounts like those of WikiLeaks and others associated with Anonymous have also disseminated compromised data in the past, but are still operating to this day.
Despite the suspension of the Twitter account, the BlueLeaks data remains available via the DdoSecrets website.
