Anonymous' Attack Causes Leak of 90,000 Emails

An attack by "hacktivist" group, Anonymous on government intelligence agencies like the CIA and Mi6 has caused the leakage of 90,000 military emails. Anonymous is calling the first wave of meltdowns (to download, click here, it's a PirateBay link) #MilitaryMeltdownMonday (they promised to release the emails Monday night IST). They targeted consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton that works often with the US Department of Defence and National Security Administration and gained access to 90,000 military emails, 4 GB of source code, as well as login information that would allow Anonymous to hack into more areas of the community's digital infrastructure.

90,000 emails in one hack

Here is Anonymous's take on the attack:

"We infiltrated a server on their network that basically had no security measures in place. We were able to run our own application, which turned out to be a shell and began plundering some booty. Most shiny is probably a list of roughly 90,000 military emails and password hashes (md5, non-salted of course!). We also added the complete sqldump, compressed ~50mb, for a good measure."

One of the things that Anonymous found in the Booz Allen Hamilton servers is the company's association with security company, HBGary. The two companies were working together to propose a program that would allow security teams to control "sock pupper" identities in social media spaces where they would steer conversation from certain topics. One way or another, Anonymous confirmed that because of this program, all U.S. military personnel will now have to change their passwords.