Stratfor Documents Obtained in December 2011 Breach - Released

The fallout from the December 2011 breach of Stratfor was not fully felt until today, when the website WikiLeaks released a statement that they would begin to publish "5 million e-mails from the private intelligence company Stratfor, starting with a company "glossary" that features unflattering descriptions of U.S. government agencies." 


Stratfor will not confirm nor deny the authenticity of the documents but they do make mention that the documents can now be easily edited by those who release the information.


Wikileaks has stated that the documents will be released through a network of more than 25 news outlets and activist groups in the coming weeks. The first document out was titled "The Stratfor Glossary of Useful, Baffling and Strange Intelligence Terms," featuring brief and sometimes humorous definitions and blunt assessments of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.


To read more about Stratfor and Wikileaks click here
To read the full text of what was released click here

Anonymous Strikes Again - Texas Police Officer Edition

A hacker affiliated with Anonymous has gained access to the Texas Police Association website and obtained names, addresses and police departments of more than 700 officers across the state. These records were then published along with a link to a news story about a Texas police officer being placed on administrative leave while being investigated for child pornography charges.


This is not the first time the Texas Police Association's website has been hacked, but it is the first time personal data has been revealed. Erwin Ballarta, Executive Director of the Texas Police Association has contacted the FBI.

pcAnywhere is Safe Again

Symantec issued a statement updating their pcAnywhere customers with the news that they were able to patch all breach-exposed vulnerabilities that had previously caused the company to advise users to disable the product.

"On Friday, January 27, 2012, Symantec released a patch that eliminates known

vulnerabilities affecting customers using pcAnywhere 12.0 and pcAnywhere 12.1."

Symantec is also offering a free-upon-request upgrade to the latest version of pcAnywhere, version 12.5. Users should send the company an email to their pcanywhere@symantec.com address.

Symantec Urges Customers to Disable pcAnywhere

The breach of Symantec source code by an Indian hacking group a few weeks ago was all but brushed off by the security giant. Symantec went on the record saying that the leaked code is, "so old that current out-of-the-box security settings will suffice against any possible threats that might materialise as a result of this incident." 

However, in a posting on their website yesterday and an accompanying technical white paper, Symantec suggests that pcAnywhere customers are at a heightened risk and advises users to "disable the product until Symantec releases a final set of software updates that resolve currently known vulnerability risks." Customers could be at risk for "man in the middle" attacks where an unauthorized person accesses pcAnywhere transactions and intercepts data as it travels from its source to its destination. These attacks are more likely because the blueprints for Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack) and pcAnywhere were accessed in the breach. The information contained in these blueprints makes it easier to identify and exploit software vulnerabilities. 

Symantec reps say that there are 50,000 people using the standalone version of pcAnywhere along with an unknown number of users who received the product bundled within other security packages.

Stratfor Breach

New year, new breach investigation. This time hackers claiming to be a part of the "hacktivist" group Anonymous have breached Austin based research company Strategic Forensics. A spokesperson from Anonymous denies this claim and lays blame on a hacker known as “Sabu,” who is closely associated with the LulzSec group.


Strategic Forensics, commonly known as "Stratfor", lost data for about 4,000 clients including passwords, credit card details, and home addresses. 


The hacker or hackers claim they will use the credit card information to make fraudulent donations to charities. Many experts speculate that they will also make efforts to decrypt the passwords and then use them to try and gain access to other accounts held by Stratfor's considerably high-end clientele. Their clients span many big name organizations including U.S. Military, U.S. State Department, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, IBM, and Microsoft employees.


This initial dump of client information is apparently not final blow for Stratfor from Anonymous. The group is planning to release millions of private company emails as well.

For a great article on this breach: Digital Trends -- Stratfor Breach