Canadian border continuing to use devices from company involved in U.S. border hack

The Canadian Border Services Agency says it is still using devices from Perceptics, which faced a U.S. border privacy breach earlier in May, and leaked travellers’ photos and license plates.

The Minister of Public Safety’s office confirmed to MobileSyrup that, “the CBSA is reviewing the situation and assessing its impacts, if any, of the latest event and will decide if action is required once the assessment is completed.”

The Minister’s office also stated that it believes that the incident does not impact the CBSA. When MobileSyrup asked the CBSA for a comment, the agency asked to refer to the comments given by the Public Safety Minister.

“While the CBSA awaits the completion of the vendor’s forensic investigation, their information at this time is that this incident does not pose systems or security vulnerabilities to the CBSA,” a spokesperson from the minister’s office wrote.

Although the CBSA said it will continue to use Perceptics, it says that the company is taking precautions.

“The vendor has implemented measures to prevent re-occurrence of a similar breach and will continue to adjust its security protocols as necessary,” a spokesperson wrote.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency downplayed the situation earlier this month and said that none of the files had been posted to the dark web.

However, The Register obtained a link to hacked files which appeared on the dark web. The Register shared these files with the CBC.

CBC News stated that the link includes internal Perceptics files such as travel receipts, payroll information, and customs declarations.

The files also included Perceptic’s previous and current clients that have Canadian ties.

Perceptics did not respond to MobileSyrup‘s request for comment.

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