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December 26th, 2011

US Security Firm Stratfor Hit By ‘Anonymous’, Clients Credit Cards And Passwords Stolen

The hacking group “Anonymous” on Sunday Christmas claimed it has stolen thousands of credit card numbers and personal information of clients of the U.S. based security think-tank Stratfor and pilfered funds it gave away as Christmas donations to charity.

Anonymous said it stole information from organizations and individuals that were clients of Stratfor, including Apple Inc., U.S. Air Force the Miami Police Department. They said they obtained more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses. Some clients of Stratfor have confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Stratfor is a company providing services to help clients manage risk. The company charges subscribers for reports and analysis it issues. The company’s main website was down in Sunday with the message: “site is currently undergoing maintenance.” Most of the victims were individual subscribers and not companies and government agencies. Anonymous in a Twitter message taunted Stratfor, saying: “Not so private and secret anymore?” The group promised that Stratfor was only the beginning of attacks to come.

Anonymous claims that it was able to steal as much as 200 gigabytes of information from Stratfor because Stratfor did not bother to encrypt them. This Revelation, if true, is serious indictment of a security services related company. The hackers published a list of what they claimed was Stratfor’s client list and tweeted a link to encrypted files with stolen names, phone numbers, emails addresses, credit card and account details. The hackers claimed that the information they have published so far is only a small part of what they stole from Stratfor.

PC Magazine reports that besides using the stolen funds for donations to charity the attackers said they were also hoping to use the incident to draw attention to the case of Pfc. Bradley Manning of the U.S. Army who is on trial over alleged involvement in leak of hundred of thousands of confidential military documents. A statement that claimed to be from the hackers said: “We hereby ask that Bradley Manning be given a delicious meal this Lulzxmas, and no, not the ‘holiday special’ in the prison chow hall. We want him out on the streets at a fancy restaurant of his choosing, and we want this to happen in less than five hours.”

values greatly. This hack is most definitely not the work of Anonymous.”
Huffington Post said that credit card owners whose cards have been hacked may contact the credit card company to dispute the charge. A member of Anonymous said on Twitter that 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists have been hacked and used “steal a million dollars” for charity donations. The statement mentioned “corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox” News. But Huffington Post reports it was not possible to verify the claims.

Credit: DigitalJournal.com

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