FBI denies it was source of leaked Apple device ID data

The FBI on Tuesday denied that the 1 million unique device identifiers for Apple devices (UDIDs) posted publicly by hacker group AntiSec on Monday had come from its computers.

In a brief statement, the FBI’s national press office said the agency was aware of reports that an FBI laptop had been compromised and that private data regarding Apple’s UDIDs had been exposed. “At this time, there is no evidence indicating that an FBI laptop was compromised or that the FBI either sought or obtained this data,” the agency said.

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The FBI’s denial comes less than a day after AntiSec, a splinter group of hacking collective Anonymous, announced on Pastebin that it had accessed more than 12 million Apple UDIDs from the computer of FBI special agent Christopher Stangl of the agency’s Regional Cyber Action Team in New York.

The hacker group claimed that the information it accessed from the FBI agent’s computer included UDID user names, names of devices, types of devices, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zip codes, cell phone numbers, and addresses.

AntiSec’s announcement prompted speculation over why the FBI might have collected the information and what it might have been tracking. Many media reports were quick to note that Stangl had been the star of an FBI promotional video about three years ago in which the agency asked hackers for their help in fighting cybercrime.

Apple’s UDIDs are a set of alphanumeric characters used to uniquely identify an iPhone or iPad. The numbers are designed to let application developers track how many users have downloaded their applications and to gather other information for data analytics. Application developers have used the UDIDs to collect personal information about the device owner, including name, age, gender, device location and phone numbers.

Apple earlier this year announced that new iOS applications would not be permitted to track UDIDs in an apparent response to privacy concerns raised over the tracking.

In its Pastebin message, AntiSec said that it had decided to post the information to expose the FBI’s secret collection and tracking of Apple UDIDs. “FBI will, as usual, deny or ignore this uncomfortable thingie and everybody will forget the whole thing at amazing speed,” the group said in its post.

FBI denies it was source of leaked Apple device ID data