http://news.yahoo.com/anonymous-hackers-target-us-security-think-tank-190846242.html

'Anonymous' hackers target US security think tank
By CASSANDRA VINOGRAD and RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI | AP – 4 hrs ago

LONDON (AP) — The loose-knit hacking movement "Anonymous" claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals' accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards.

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor's confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.

Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos. The company's main website was down, with a banner saying the "site is currently undergoing maintenance."

Proprietary information about the companies and government agencies that subscribe to Stratfor's newsletters did not appear to be at any significant risk, however, with the main threat posed to individual employees who had subscribed.

"Not so private and secret anymore?" Anonymous taunted in a message on Twitter, promising that the attack on Stratfor was just the beginning of a Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Anonymous said the client list it had already posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks. It said it was able to get the credit card details in part because Stratfor didn't bother encrypting them — an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.

Fred Burton, Stratfor's vice president of intelligence, said the company had reported the intrusion to law enforcement and was working with them on the investigation.

Stratfor has protections in place meant to prevent such attacks, he said.

"But I think the hackers live in this kind of world where once they fixate on you or try to attack you it's extraordinarily difficult to defend against," Burton said.

Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfor's client list, Anonymous tweeted a link to encrypted files online with names, phone numbers, emails, addresses and credit card account details.

"Not as many as you expected? Worry not, fellow pirates and robin hoods. These are just the 'A's," read a message posted online that encouraged readers to download a file of the hacked information.

The attack is "just another in a massive string of breaches we've seen this year and in years past," said Josh Shaul, chief technology officer of Application Security Inc., a New York-based provider of database security software.

Still, companies that shared secret information with Stratfor in order to obtain threat assessments might worry that the information is among the 200 gigabytes of data that Anonymous claims to have stolen, he said.

"If an attacker is walking away with that much email, there might be some very juicy bits of information that they have," Shaul said.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the Air Force, said that "for obvious reasons" the Air Force doesn't discuss specific vulnerabilities, threats or responses to them.

"The Air Force will continue to monitor the situation and, as always, take appropriate action as necessary to protect Air Force networks and information," he said in an email.

Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt. Freddie Cruz Jr. said that he could not confirm that the agency was a client of Stratfor, and he said he had not received any information about a security breach involving the police department.

Anonymous also linked to images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole.

"Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency," read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee's information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit.

One receipt — to the American Red Cross — had Allen Barr's name on it.

Barr, of Austin, Texas, recently retired from the Texas Department of Banking and said he discovered last Friday that a total of $700 had been spent from his account. Barr, who has spent more than a decade dealing with cybercrime at banks, said five transactions were made in total.

"It was all charities, the Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children. So when the credit card company called my wife she wasn't sure whether I was just donating," said Barr, who wasn't aware until a reporter with the AP called that his information had been compromised when Stratfor's computers were hacked.

"It made me feel terrible. It made my wife feel terrible. We had to close the account."

Wishing everyone a "Merry LulzXMas" — a nod to its spinoff hacking group Lulz Security — Anonymous also posted a link on Twitter to a site containing the email, phone number and credit number of a U.S. Homeland Security employee.

The employee, Cody Sultenfuss, said he had no warning before his details were posted.

"They took money I did not have," he told The Associated Press in a series of emails, which did not specify the amount taken. "I think 'Why me?' I am not rich."

But the breach doesn't necessarily pose a risk to owners of the credit cards. A card user who suspects fraudulent activity on his or her card can contact the credit card company to dispute the charge.

Stratfor said in an email to members, signed by Stratfor Chief Executive George Friedman and passed on to AP by subscribers, that it had hired a "leading identity theft protection and monitoring service" on behalf of the Stratfor members affected by the attack. The company said it will send another email on services for affected members by Wednesday.

Stratfor acknowledged that an "unauthorized party" had revealed personal information and credit card data of some of its members.

The company had sent another email to subscribers earlier in the day saying it had suspended its servers and email after learning that its website had been hacked.

One member of the hacking group, who uses the handle AnonymousAbu on Twitter, claimed that more than 90,000 credit cards from law enforcement, the intelligence community and journalists — "corporate/exec accounts of people like Fox" News — had been hacked and used to "steal a million dollars" and make donations.

It was impossible to verify where credit card details were used. Fox News was not on the excerpted list of Stratfor members posted online, but other media organizations including MSNBC and Al-Jazeera English appeared in the file.

Anonymous warned it has "enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week."

The group has previously claimed responsibility for attacks on credit card companies Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., eBay Inc.'s PayPal, as well as other groups in the music industry and the Church of Scientology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7BsIDCanEw

The resistance has begun.....

I hope when the government arrests these little teenie bopper a$$hats they are sent to G-Bay and treated like the terrorists they are.

You know there was a video that spoke of the possibility that maybe this entire group is government created and run, and they are gonna use it/are using it as a means to restrict our web rights and make US seem like the bad guys and terrorists, to make the people look bad. I'm starting to think there may well be some truth to that.........

Problem. Reaction. Solution. They are masters at it.

'Anonymous' message to Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=bl65QO4bKfA

Yeah, we can expect such a statement from someone who wants to nuke Iran killing 78 million innocent people to get a few nutjobs who run their gov't, starting WW3.

And you call them a$$hats and terrorists!

They arn't they are a bunch of teenagers. Several have been arrested across the world and they are all 16, 17 and 18. Yup, definately a Government conspiracy...............

First of all, anyone who knows anything about anonymous knows that they have no spokesperson and they do not "boast" of anything nor do they "claim" to have done anything.

There are no spokespersons for anonymous.

So this is bull chit PROPAGANDA.

There may be some hacker criminals and thieves who are doing it and claiming to be the "anonymous" group but they are not.

They are just thieves.

Why anonymous cannot be stopped.....

"In the past many leaders have arisen
and changed the world for the better
the control system knows exactly how to
deal with these type of leaders
they know that if the rebel leader is
removed then the momentum of the movement
is severely damaged
there is a saying;
"cut off the head and the body will die"
without the leader the followers are left disheartened
and a weakened version of the original idea lives on
anonymous is different as there are no official leaders
and everyone is their own leader
there is no centralised power structure
there is only the idea
this is very difficult to stop
the control system tries to apply the same old method
of finding the leaders or arresting individual members
they do this because they presume anonymous functions
in the same way as themselves
they function within the structure of a pyramid
someone higher up is always passing on orders to those below
of course this is not the case with anonymous
anonymous is comparable to a virus in the way the
idea of itself spreads
every new member becomes a unique point of origin
and takes on their own interpretation of anonymous
in this way, anonymous is constantly spreading and evolving
this is why it is impossible to stop
recently there have been arrests by the FBI of anonymous members
let me say this
trying to stop anonymous by arresting individual members is like
trying to extinguish a wildfire with a cup of water

We are anonymous
we are legion
expect us..."

If anyone had taken down ANYONE known to actually be linked to Anon....it would be world news.....hasn't happened! Just a few small hackers who were caught and wanted a little piece of fame or glory.

We are anonymous
we are legion
expect us..."

Ummmmm, it was word news. Members of Anonymous and the splinter group Lulzsec were taken down about a month or so ago in the UK and parts of the US.

There are no "members" of anonymous. If you knew anything about it you would know that.

There is also a Grey Hat Hactivist named The Jester(who is a true hero) who has been exposing these clowns at every point.

Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a group, whose MEMBERS are geographically spread around the world but connected through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

Dutch arrestIn December 2010, the Dutch police arrested a 16-year old for cyberattacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal in conjunction with Anonymous' DDOS attacks against companies opposing Wikileaks.

United States warrantsIn January 2011, the FBI issued more than 40 search warrants in a probe against the Anonymous attacks on companies that opposed Wikileaks. The FBI did not issue any arrest warrants, but issued a statement that participating in DDOS attacks is a criminal offense with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

British arrestsIn January 2011, the British police arrested five boys and men between the ages of 15 and 26 with suspicion of participating in Anonymous DDOS attacks.

Australian arrestMatthew George, a Newcastle, New South Wales resident, concerned with forthcoming Australian internet filtration legislation, was arrested for his participation in Anonymous DDOS activities. George participated in Anonymous IRC discussions, and allowed his computer to be used in a denial of service attack associated with Operation Titstorm. Tracked down by authorities, he was fined $550, though he was not fully aware that his actions were illegal, and believed his participation in Operation Titstorm had been a legal form of civil protest. His experience left him disillusioned with the potential of online anonymity, warning others: "There is no way to hide on the internet, no matter how hard you cover your tracks you can get caught. You're not invincible."

Spanish arrestsOn June 10, 2011 the Spanish police captured three purported members of Anonymous in the cities of Gijon, Barcelona and Valencia. The operation deactivated the main server from which the three men coordinated DDoS attacks. This particular group had made attacks on the web servers of the Playstation store, BBVA, Bankia, and the websites of the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. The operation revealed that their structure consisted of "cells" which at any given time could coordinate attacks through the downloading of software; the decision-making process to attack occurred in chat rooms. The Spanish national police stated that this operation corresponds to the fact that the Spanish government and NATO considers this group of hackers a threat to national security.

Turkey arrestsOn June 13, 2011 officials in Turkey arrested 32 individuals that were allegedly involved in DDoS attacks on Turkish government websites. These members of Anonymous were captured in different cities of Turkey including Istanbul and Ankara. According to PC Magazine these individuals were arrested after they attacked these websites as a response to the Turkish government demand to ISPs to implement a system of filters that many have perceived as censorship.

Arrests following Operation Avenge AssangeDuring July 19-20, as many as 20 or more arrests were made of suspected Anonymous hackers in the US, UK, and Netherlands following the 2010 Operation Avenge Assange in which the group attacked PayPal, as well as attacking MasterCard and Visa after they froze Wikileaks accounts. According to US officials statements suspects homes were raided and suspects were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio, as well as a sixteen year old boy being held by the police in south London on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and four being held in the Netherlands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)#Dutch_arrest

Yeap, we should all praise and idolize a guy who rats on his friends

"When injustice becomes law
rebellion becomes duty."

~Thomas Jefferson~

Who has taken down numerous Al Qaeda, AQAP and Al Shabab websites and affiliated websites.