Verizon is allegedly suckered into giving a female customer's home address to her stalker
The nation's largest wireless carrier, Verizon, fell for a scam that resulted in the firm handing over a female customer's home address and phone data to a man named Robert Michael Glauner who was impersonating a police officer. According to ArsTechnica, an affidavit submitted in court last week revealed that Glaunder was picked up near the unidentified female Verizon customer's home and was carrying a knife at the time of his arrest.
Verizon failed to notice that an email request for a customer's phone data came from a Proton Mail address
In the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Glauner was charged with stalking and fraud "in connection with obtaining confidential phone records." Normally we might include a link to these records, but because they contain the victim's home address, we will let it go. The couple did have a romantic relationship but after the victim ended it, he "continued to contact or try to contact" her court documents noted.
Excerpt from the official court documents
Glauner was able to obtain her address and other information by sending an email and a fake search warrant to vsat.cct@one.verizon.com which is the email address for the Verizon Security Assistance Team (VSAT) which handles legal requests made to the carrier. Verizon failed to realize that the request for personal customer information was fake even though it came from an account using a Proton Mail address instead of a police department or a government agency.
The email to Verizon came from "steven1966c@proton.me" and said, "Here is the pdf file for search warrant. We are in need if the [sic] this cell phone data as soon as possible to locate and apprehend this suspect. We also need the full name of this Verizon subscriber and the new phone number that has been assigned to her. Thank you." The email had an attached document that included a fake affidavit written by "Detective Steven Cooper" of the Cary, North Carolina Police Department. The department has no such Detective by that name on its squad.
The fake affidavit asked for the Verizon customer's new phone number along with "call records both outgoing and incoming" and "locations and text messages incoming and outgoing." The affidavit for a search warrant was approved by Superior Court Judge Gale Adams whose signature was forged on the document. The Verizon Security Assistance Team received a phone call from the bogus Detective Cooper stating that he was investigating a homicide and needed information on a suspect.
The couple met on the dating section of porn site xHamster
FBI Special Agent Michael Neylon said in his affidavit that "On October 5, 2023, Verizon Wireless provided Victim 1's phone records, including address and phone logs, to Glauner." The VSAT website says, "Verizon Security Assistance Team will only accept valid legal demands (subpoena, court order or search warrant) for records." That is, of course, unless they are tricked into believing that a fake request for information is real.
404Media was the first to report the incident noting that Glauner met the woman on the dating section of porn site xHamster and after Verizon gave up the victim's address, he traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina from New Mexico to meet her in person. Before he arrived, he had sent a threatening message that said, "If I can't have you no one can." He also threatened to send nude photos of the woman to her family members.
It should be noted that Verizon is cooperating with law enforcement officials. It also should be noted that at the time he allegedly committed the above-referenced actions, Glauner was wanted by the San Diego Sheriff's Office on a charge of stalking an ex-girlfriend. The police report in that case noted "that [the victim] had 'changed her phone number 4 times in the last four months but somehow [Glauner] keeps getting her number.'"
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