FBI Used Non-Public Vulnerability To Hack PC Child Porn Suspects

The FBI has exploited a vulnerability unknown to the general public in a child pornography case to break into suspects’ computers. The bug has been used to find out the real IP address of Tor users.

According to the judge on duty in the relevant child pornography case, the suspects were traced because the FBI broke into their PCs. First, the authorities got their hands on the Playpen website, after which it was infected with malware. Subsequently, unsuspecting visitors to the website were infected and the FBI was able to hack into their PCs, Motherboard reports based on the court report.

By infecting the PCs with malware, the FBI managed to find out the real IP addresses of the visitors. The suspects used the Tor browser to protect their identities. Technical details about the vulnerability have not been released, but it is likely that it is a zero day that is located in the source code of Mozilla’s Firefox browser; the Tor browser is based on this.

Throughout the operation, the FBI managed to hack into approximately 8,700 computers spread across 120 different countries. It is one of the largest government-organized hacking campaigns publicly known.