Anonymous hacks NATO, releases secret documents online

Hacking group Anonymous claims that it has gained access to top secret NATO files in a daring attack on the global security organisation today.

Writing on their Twitter stream the group said, “Hi NATO. Yes we haz more of your delicious data. You wonder where from? No hints, your turn. You call it war; we laugh at your battleships.”

Anonymous says that it has access to over 1 GB of NATO data which it will publish “in the next days”.  As evidence of the hack the group has published two PDFs.

One document dated from 2007 contains information from the “Joint Communications Control Centre for ISAF forces in Afghanistan.”  The second, created in 2008, concerns outsourcing communications systems in Kosovo.

Anonymous says that it will not publish most of the material that it claims to have access to, as to do so would be “irresponsible.”

A NATO official responded to the hack, stating, “We strongly condemn any leak of classified documents, which can potentially endanger the security of NATO allies, armed forces and citizens.”

The two documents released are marked as restricted, which is the lowest level of clearance for NATO documentation, although the very process of hacking into the global security organisation is a coup for the group.  However, if the group’s claims that it has access to over 1 GB of NATO data is correct and its assurance that it will not to be “irresponsible” with the data are true than it may be the case that they have access to more classified documents.

Earlier this week 16 people were arrested in the US, who officials say were part of the Anonymous group that attacked PayPal in December 2010.  While on Tuesday another hacking group, LulzSec, hacked into the The Sun’s website and posted an article claiming the embattled media mogul Rupert Murdoch had been found dead.  Arrests have also been made in the UK, The Netherlands, and Spain.

NATO is not the first security organisation to be hacked by the group, the CIA and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, SOCA, have also been attacked.