Anonymous exposes 75,000 credit card numbers
By Jolie O'Dell | VentureBeat.com, Published: December 30
Hacker collective Anonymous has just dumped 200 GB of names, email addresses and passwords for around 860,000 Stratfor users. Anonymous also exposed credit card numbers for 75,000 paying customers of Stratfor.
Stratfor, a security think tank, provides reports on international security and related threats to government and military personnel as well as to the private sector.
It is unknown whether Anonymous gained access to other, more sensitive information during the Stratfor hacks, which occurred on December 24.
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Something doesn't add up: if the Stratfor company "provides reports on international security and related threats to government and military personnel as well as to the private sector", then what is it doing with 75,000 credit card numbers in the first place? It's not like there are hordes of consumers looking to have regular reports on "international security" emailed to them, so why does Stratfor have those numbers?
The only logical conclusion - someone correct me if I'm wrong - is that Stratfor is conducting electronic surveillance by monitoring credit and debit card transactions.
And how would Stratfor get "860,000" users? /What/ users? /What/ use are they making of Stratfor's services? This story just adds more fog to the miasma that surrounds this whole matter.
Bill Horne Moderator