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

Bank of America Prepares for WikiLeaks Disclosure

The Bank of America is on edge about a statement made by WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. The statement claims that early this year (2011), a major American bank will suddenly find itself turned inside out. In response to this statement, Bank of America has created a team of 15 to 20 internal and external experts to come up with a damage control plan in the event that WikiLeaks releases documents that would affect its reputation and brand. An internal investigation to determine what internal documents have been leaked to WikiLeaks has already begun.

Since Assange has announced that a company in the banking industry will be affected next, there has been speculation within the industry that the bank he is referencing is Bank of America. Bank of America has stated that its investigations have not lead to any information regarding what documents WikiLeaks may have, but it wants to be prepared.

Bank of America Breached: Employees Take Customer Data

According to papers filed last week at the New York Supreme Court, four former Bank of America employees left the organization for another wealth management firm, and brought an unnamed number of customer databases with them.

The employees felt that they were entitled to the information in the databases based on a contact sharing protocol that many banks agree to during job negotiations. Bank of America denies agreeing to this protocol.

Further hearings on this case will take place in January. This case comes as Bank of America is rumored to be preparing for the posting of damaging leaked documents pertaining to the mortgage crisis, by the website WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks Threatens Release of Unredacted Documents

For WikiLeaks Founder, Julian Assange, the days following the latest release of secret documents have brought legal troubles, sex crime allegations, and death threats. 

In response, Assange has released an encrypted document to tens of thousands of hackers and open-government campaigners that contains all of the documents that WikiLeaks has received to date. Assange's  lawyer has said that if anything happens to Assange, either physically or legally, the encryption key will be released, and all of the documents will be immediately available. Assange refers to the document as his "insurance policy." 


This file is believed to contain US Government papers on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp as well as damaging private-sector documents pertaining to the energy and banking industries. It is believed that two of the targets are industry leaders BP and Bank of America.


Does your organization have processes in place to prevent data loss?
Start your conversations with Attevo now to mitigate your organization's risk and exposure because your industry could be next. Call (216)928-2800 to set up a meeting today!