Anonymous hacks Defense Contractor

Hacktivist group Anonymous has infiltrated and downloaded sensitive email messages of a major U.S. government defense contractor.

The email data, purportedly belonging to Richard Garcia, senior vice president at Vanguard and former FBI agent, belongs to Vanguard Defense, a military contractor, which makes unmanned drones for the field.

The documents are publicised in a post on Pastebin, which links to the leaked cache of documents and data on another site.

The hack is said to have occurred by exploiting weaknesses in the Wordpress blogging system, through two out-dated plug-ins.

Part of the wider AntiSec movement — devoted to releasing data held by high-profile targets lacking appropriate security — this comes as another blow to the U.S. law enforcement capability, only a fortnight after AntiSec hackers released the largest cache of law enforcement data to date.

The Anonymous group in a statement says the leak contains: “internal meeting notes and contracts, schematics, non-disclosure agreements, personal information about other VDI employees, and several dozen “counter-terrorism” documents classified as “law enforcement sensitive” and “for official use only.”

It is not clear whether the ’schematics’ stolen relate to the drones manufactured by Vanguard Industries or not. The email data, however, are marked as classified material, with “confidential” and “for official use only” markings.

The hackers did not point to a reason why Vanguard Industries was targeted, except crediting the hack as part of the ongoing “F**k FBI Friday” campaign.

“We are doing this not only to cause embarrassment and disruption to Vanguard Defense Industries, but to send a strong message to the hacker community. White hat sellouts, law enforcement collaborators, and military contractors beware: we’re coming for your mail spools, bash history files, and confidential documents”, reads the Pastebin-posted statement.

Another key message in the statement points to InfraGard, which the message calls a “sinister alliance of law enforcement, military and private security contractors” which protect infrastructure that “[Anonymous] aim to destroy.”