The Curious Case of the Garden State Imposter

Cloudflare, an Internet infrastructure provider, recently dealt with a fake abuse complaint from an entity claiming to be the "New Jersey Office of the Attorney General." The company forwarded the complaint to the website host and provided contact information for the hosting provider. Upon further investigation, they identified several anomalies in the complaint that raised questions about its legitimacy. Later, the New Jersey Attorney General's office confirmed that the complaint was fake. This incident highlights the importance of carefully handling abuse complaints and requests from law enforcement to prevent bad actors from gaming the system. Cloudflare will continue exploring ways to minimize the possibility of their abuse process being abused by malicious parties.