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Hackers reveal K-9 officers' data
From: Jake Kouns <jkouns () opensecurityfoundation org>
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:45:22 -0500
In the latest in an ongoing series of online attacks on law enforcement, hackers released personal information of more than 100 members of a police K-9 association, triggering a criminal investigation by the FBI. Hackers breached the website of the Los Angeles County Police Canine Association on Tuesday and later publicly posted addresses and phone numbers of members, who are both sworn officers at local law enforcement agencies and civilian dog handlers assisting in search and rescue operations. "I'm appalled that there are people out there who would do this to other people," said Tony Vairo, president of LACPCA and a sergeant with the San Fernando Police Department. "Obviously, they have great talents and they're putting their talents on the wrong side of the law." The hackers are associated with the hacker collective Anonymous, which in December posted personal information, including children's names and phone numbers, of two dozen high- ranking LAPD command staff in retaliation for the department's raid on the Occupy L.A. encampment. Anonymous has been targeting law enforcement agencies across the U.S. as part of the Occupy movement, alleging police injustices and making public the personal information of officers in a move known as "doxing." The group claims to have obtained personal information of more than 1,000 officers nationwide in the last three weeks, as well as search warrants and court documents. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller declined to comment on the agency's involvement in Tuesday's case. LAPD was still trying to figure out how many of their officers were affected by the breach. Three or four deputies with the L.A. County Sheriff's Department had their information released in the posting, although it was mostly work-related information and did not compromise their safety, said spokesman Capt. Mike Parker. "The information that was obtained could be obtained through public records," Parker said. Members typically provide their name, address, agency, work history, certifications, name and breed of their K-9 when signing up for the LACPCA website, Vairo said. But the hackers appeared to have used information gleaned from the breach to dig deeper into members' online accounts elsewhere. The group claimed to have found some objectionable photos of children in one member's private email account, which they accessed by using the same password as the one for LACPCA, according to CNET. The content would be reported to appropriate agencies protecting children from online exploitation, the group said. Vairo said the member in question is a civilian. "We're not too worried," Vairo said. "If something leads to one of our members involved in some kind of criminal activity, then so be it. They'll need to answer to it." _______________________________________________ Dataloss-discuss Mailing List (dataloss-discuss () datalossdb org) Archived at http://seclists.org/dataloss/ Unsubscribe at http://datalossdb.org/mailing_list Small, inexpensive USB drives pose huge threats to organizations left unprotected. Download Chapter 1 of CREDANT Technologies eBook Data Protection to the Rescue http://www.credant.com/campaigns/external_media_ebook/chapter1/lp/
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- Hackers reveal K-9 officers' data Jake Kouns (Feb 25)