AntiSec Hacks Booz Allen, Posts Confidential Military Email

Hacktivist group AntiSec started the week with yet another intrusion on a government contractor, this time targeting Booz Allen Hamilton and posting what it claims are 90,000 military email addresses and passwords from the contractor online.

The group--a spinoff from the Anonymous and now-defunct LulzSec hacker teams--posted a torrent on the Pirate Bay calling the hack "Military Meltdown Monday: Mangling Booz Allen Hamilton." It was the second on a government defense contractor in nearly as many days.

In notes about the release, AntiSec criticized the lack of security it encountered when trying to infiltrate a server on Booz Allen's network, claiming it "basically had no security measures in place." In its work with the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Booz Allen contractors maintain high government security clearances.

"In this line of work you'd expect them to sail the seven proxseas with a state-of-the-art battleship, right?" the group wrote. "Well you may be as surprised as we were when we found their vessel being a puny wooden barge."

The group said it ran its own application on the network to collect data at will. AntiSec claimed it also was able to steal 4 GB of source code; however, "this was deemed insignificant and a waste of valuable space, so we merely grabbed it, and wiped it from their system."

Additionally, the group used the credentials it lifted from the system to take various data from other servers, as well as found what it claimed are clues to infiltrating other government agencies and federal contractors that it may pass on to other hackers, it said.

AntiSec--and hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec before it--have embarked on an international hacking spree in the last month as part of an "Operation Anti Security" campaign which it said is targeting government corruption around the world.

On Friday AntiSec said it had successfully infiltrated the servers of FBI contractor IRC Federal, posting information it found in internal emails on both Pastebin and the Pirate Bay. Like Booz Allen, IRC Federal also works with the DOD, among other federal agencies.

While IRC confirmed the breach of its network, Booz Allen declined to confirm or deny AntiSec's claims, tweeting that as part of the company's security policy, "we generally do not comment on specific threats or actions taken against our systems."

In the new, all-digital Dark Reading supplement: What industry can teach government about IT innovation and efficiency. Also in this issue: Federal agencies have to shift from annual IT security assessments to continuous monitoring of their risks. Download it now. (Free registration required.)