CybersecurityAnonymous hacker collective hits rural law enforcement

Published 9 August 2011

In its latest exploit, global hacker collective Anonymous claimed to release ten GB of stolen data from more than seventy rural sheriff’s departments across the United States, leaking sensitive information that could compromise the agencies’ investigations

Anonymous and LulzSec together again // Source: presstvmobile.com

In its latest exploit, global hacker collective Anonymous claimed to release ten GB of stolen data from more than seventy rural sheriff’s departments across the United States, leaking sensitive information that could compromise the agencies’ investigations.

CRN reports that the data, which Anonymous hackers posted to Pastebin.com, was sourced to seventy-six law enforcement agencies’ Web sites in eleven states, including Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi. Most of the Web sites were hosted by Arkansas-based online marketing firm Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing.

The lifted data contained confidential e-mail messages from sheriff departments as well as passwords, Social Security numbers, and credit card information.

This latest attacks were part of the AntiSec campaign, a concerted effort to target corporations as well as law enforcement agencies and governments – especially the defense and intelligence agencies of governments. The effort was reinvigorated in June, when LulzSec claimed to be absorbed back into its parent hacker group Anonymous following a 50-day hacking rampage..