Hackers steal credit card information from global think tank

Hackers targeted Stratfor, a global intelligence company, but it was unclear Sunday evening whether the breach and apparent release of credit card information was the work of the group Anonymous.

In a posting on the website Pastebin, hackers said they released Stratfor subscriber data, including information on 4,000 credit cards as well as the company’s “private client” list. The posting cited AntiSec, a Web-based collaboration with the activist hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec.

U.S.-based Stratfor, which provides independent analysis of international affairs and security threats, sent an e-mail to subscribers on Sunday:

“On December 24th an unauthorized party disclosed personally identifiable information and related credit card data of some of our members. We have reason to believe that your personal and credit card data could have been included in the information that was illegally obtained and disclosed.”

But Stratfor also said the “private clients” disclosure was “merely a list of some of the members that have purchased our publications and does not comprise a list of individuals or entities that have a relationship with Stratfor beyond their purchase of our subscription-based publications.”

The security think tank provides intelligence reports to subscribers. A recent e-mail discussed political prospects for Iraq.

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A press release on the information-sharing website Pastebin, which said it was by Anonymous, said the group had nothing to do with the cyberattack on Stratfor.

“Stratfor is an open source intelligence agency, publishing daily reports on data collected from the open internet,” the purported posting by Anonymous said. “Hackers claiming to be Anonymous have distorted this truth in order to further their hidden agenda, and some Anons have taken the bait.”

“The leaked client list represents subscribers to a daily publication which is the primary service of Stratfor,” according to the writer. “Stratfor analysts are widely considered to be extremely unbiased. Anonymous does not attack media sources.”

Stratfor CEO George Friedman said the company is working closely with law enforcement.

“Stratfor’s relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me,” he wrote on the firm’s Facebook page.

“We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites,” the Austin, Texas, company said. “We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained.”

Asked about the hacking, Pentagon spokesman George Little on Sunday said, “Initial indications suggest that there has been no impact to the DoD (Department of Defense) grid.”

Stratfor’s website was not functioning Sunday evening. A banner read, “Site is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back soon.”

Hackers in weekend online postings regarding the Stratfor situation mentioned Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. He faces 22 charges in connection to the leak of nearly 750,000 U.S. military and State Department documents. Most of them ended up on the WikiLeaks website.

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“While the rich and powerful are enjoying themselves with all their bourgeois gifts and lavish meals, our comrade Bradley Manning is not having that great of a time in federal custody,” the hackers wrote in a Pastebin posting. “Instead of being heralded as a fighter for free information and government transparency, he is criminalized, marginalized, and incarcerated, threatened with life imprisonment.”

7.2 rated Strong quake strikes PNG

A violent 7.1-magnitude earthquake has struck Papua New Guinea, shaking buildings and prompting residents to run into the streets and causing panic in the highlands.

The quake, initially rated at 7.3, hit at a depth of 115 kilometres (71 miles) southwest of the coastal city of Lae and 223 kilometres from the capital Port Moresby, the US Geological Survey said.

Macklyn Timbun, who works as a receptionist at the Lae International Hotel, said she was sitting on a bus when the quake hit and it was so large the driver ran away and the vehicle almost rolled in the upheaval.

“I was like ‘Oh my god what’s happening?’ Everybody started running, people were trying to jump out of the windows, it was the biggest earthquake,” she told AFP.

“Outside the hotel everyone was running out of the building because most of the time we never experience such earthquakes in Lae.”

Geoscience Australia put the quake at a magnitude 7.2 at 0504 GMT, but said it was not expected to create a tsunami because it was not an undersea rupture.

“That’s the assessment on the basis that it’s about 20 kilometres inshore and also it’s about 120 kilometres deep and that’s too deep really to cause any tsunami problems,” said seismologist Clive Collins.

Papua New Guinea’s earthquake observatory said there were no reports yet of damage but Collins said the tremor could have caused problems for the nearest large town Wau, about 20 kilometres from the epicentre, as well as Lae.

“It’s in a mountainous area so there may be issues of landslides and things like that, that’s what’s the main problem in that particular part of Papua New Guinea,” Collins said.

In Wau, a gold mining centre located between Port Moresby and Lae, US missionary Jim Bloom described the quake as “quite a good one”.

“The floor started sort of bouncing around a little bit like when a big truck passes nearby, and then the whole building really started shaking and rattling,” he said, adding he was not aware of any damage in his area.

“Just a lot of shaking and a lot of noise from the buildings, but we very seldom have damage because most of our buildings are made from timber and steel and so they’re very flexible. But the water tanks were sloshing around for about five minutes or six minutes or so afterwards.”

Another Lae witness, reached by telephone, said there was no major destruction evident.

“I was standing outside and the buildings shook, the ground shook,” he said, adding the quake likely lasted more than a minute.

“We have quakes here regularly but not like this.”

Papua New Guinea is regularly rocked by quakes due to its proximity to the so-called “Pacific Ring of Fire”, a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.

Collins said the impoverished but sparsely populated nation of 6.6 million would likely face aftershocks in the coming hours.

“I’m sure there will be aftershocks with something that big, whether they will be significant or not… it’s unknown really,” he said.