Cybersecurity

FBI hacked into 8k computers in 120 countries using single disputed warrant – report

The FBI hacked into more than 8,000 computers in 120 countries during an investigation into a child pornography website with just one warrant, a court hearing transcript has shown. It represents the largest known law enforcement hacking campaign to date.

The hacking centers around an FBI investigation in February 2015, in which the bureau seized the Playpen child pornography website and ran it from a government server for 13 days. It used a piece of malware known as a network investigative technique (NIT) to break into the computer of anyone who visited certain child pornography threads on the website. It then sent the suspects' IP addresses back to the FBI.

Over the past year, Motherboard has found that the FBI hacked computers in Australia, Austria, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Greece, and likely the UK, Turkey, and Norway during the investigation.