The loose-knit hacking movement Anonymous claimed Sunday to have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of United States-based security think tank, Stratfor, the Associated Press reported.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 Stratfors confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Incorporated. to the US 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 companys 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 Stratfors 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 didnt bother encrypting theman easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.Stratfors Vice-President of intelligence, Mr. Fred Burton, 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 its extraordinarily difficult to defend against, Burton said.Hours after publishing what it claimed was Stratfors 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 As, 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 weve seen this year and in years past, said Josh Shaul, chief technology officer of Application Security Incorporated, 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 doesnt 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 employees information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit.One receiptto the American Red Crosshad Allen Barrs 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.
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