Hackers 'donate' $1m from security think-tank

A group of online hackers have say they have donated over a million dollars to charity, after stealing credit card details from America's Department of Defence and dozens of other major organisations.

The group "Anonymous" claims it accessed the credit card details in a raid on server of the US security firm Stratfor.

The company's client list includes law enforcement agencies and technology firms like Apple and Microsoft.

The movement said it has stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of the US-based security think-tank.

One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals’ accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorised transactions linked to their credit cards.

Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor’s confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple to the US Air Force and 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 today, 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 did not 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 had 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,” Mr 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, 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,” Mr Shaul said.

Lt Col John Dorrian, public affairs officer for the US Air Force, said that “for obvious reasons” the service did not 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.

Miami Police Department spokesman Sgt Freddie Cruz 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! Defence 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 dollars to a non-profit group.

One receipt – to the American Red Cross – had Allen Barr’s name on it.

Mr Barr, of Austin, Texas, recently retired from the Texas Department of Banking and said he discovered last Friday that a total of 700 dollars had been spent from his account. Mr 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 Mr Barr, who was not aware until an Associated Press reporter 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,” he said.

Stratfor said in an email to members, signed by chief executive George Friedman, that it had hired a “leading identity theft protection and monitoring service” on behalf of members affected by the attack.