The Portland Police Bureau in Oregon is urging the public to temporarily avoid submitting information through Crime Stoppers after a data breach first reported by Straight Arrow News exposed millions of “anonymous” crime tips.
The breach included more than 8.3 million highly sensitive records stolen from the tip and intelligence management company P3 Global Intel.
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P3 enables the public to submit crime tips over the phone, online and through its app to hundreds of Crime Stoppers programs, local and federal law enforcement, more than 30,000 schools and the U.S. military.
“The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) is aware of reports indicating that a third-party service used to collect anonymous Crime Stoppers tips for thousands of organizations may have experienced a data breach,” the Bureau said in a statement published to its website Thursday. “At this time, the validity and scope of the reported breach are still under review.”
SAN obtained the data, which includes millions of crime tips sent between 1987 and 2025, from a hacker group known as THE INTERNET YIFF MACHINE. Personal information on those accused of crimes — including names, email addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, home addresses, license plate numbers, Social Security numbers and criminal histories — was exposed in the data.
Despite promises of total anonymity from P3, tipsters’ information is also present throughout the hacked data.
In one submission, a mother warned that the seventh-grade classmate of her child was reportedly fixating on firearms, grenades and self-harm. Internal notes on P3’s system revealed that police carried out a wellness check on the student before sending him to the hospital for a mental evaluation. While minors’ identities are supposed to remain protected, the student’s name is included throughout the report.
Following SAN’s investigation, P3’s parent company, Navigate360, hired a third-party forensics firm to determine whether they were breached.
Navigate360 CEO JP Guilbault said P3’s systems remain online.
“To this point, we have not confirmed that any sensitive information has been accessed or misused,” Guilbault told SAN Wednesday.
But the Portland Police Bureau doesn’t appear willing to wait for the results of P3’s investigation.
“Out of an abundance of caution, PPB is encouraging community members to temporarily refrain from submitting tips through the Crime Stoppers platform,” the bureau’s statement said. “Individuals wishing to provide non-anonymous information related to ongoing investigations are asked to submit tips directly via email to crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov.”
It remains unclear at this time if other police departments across the country will follow suit.
The hacked data has not been made public. A copy was provided by the hackers to the nonprofit leak archiver DDoSecrets, which plans to permit select journalists and researchers access to conduct follow-up reporting.
