While Hacking Alabama.gov’s site, Anonymous ran into some Startling Information (yours)
Several members of the collective activist group Anonymous have come forward with some extremely unnerving information which they would like the public to be aware of. While targeting Alabama.gov’s website over the State’s new draconian measures, they ran into something very unexpected – sensitive data on everyone in the area – and it took just minutes of their time. Social security numbers, license plates, criminal records, descriptions, etc are all within reach of anyone that wants to obtain them.
It would cost little to secure this information, yet the state of Alabama has left their residents’ data, there for the taking.
46,000 residents of Alabama were accessed within minutes — accidentally. Imagine, if an identity thief hacked into their system with it being so vulnerable. Surely, Alabama officials are privy to a more secure way to lock up this sensitive data.
Anonymous members @Anon_w0rmer, CabinCr3w and @ItsKahuna want the public to be educated on how vulnerable their information is in Alabama and also want you to understand they have deleted it so as not to hurt any innocent people. A few redactions on a small sample will be made, so as to prove their authenticity.
This is what the public should be aware of and I quote:
“They stored information on their criminal database with lack of security and unencrypted.”
Including peoples crimianl records and soical security numbers.”
46 thousand people“license plates,home numbers, descriptions, ssn’s”
we feel attention needs to be drawn to their incompetence“We want it known alabama neglects their people.”
“It’s blatant negligence”
We are going to release our internal protocol for handling data
Data such as this should never be so accessible. “If we were criminals, we’d dump this information or sell it” said one Anon, adding, “the police could have secured these peoples info with little cost.”
A fortune could have been generated if this collective group had chosen a criminal route but that’s not their style, nor is it their goal. They want you to realize how little the State of Alabama stresses over its population’s sensitive information. Your identity can be stolen — within minutes. In Alabama, your information is there for anyone to access. To think, the aforementioned Anons came across this startling information accidentally, without actually trying to obtain it, leaves me to question how easily it could be obtained by a criminal who wants that particular data.
This all occurred due to Alabama’s new measures towards undocumented migrants, and this was the outcome. Yes, they did get into the government’s site, but never expected a trove of information on the residents of that State.
Update: The pastebin containing the redacted information begins with:
We at the Cabin have been monitoring your recent racist legislation in an attempt to punish immigrants as criminals. The authorities in the state of Alabama are now able to question people suspected of being in the country illegally and hold them, and officials are able to check the immigration status of students in public schools. We will not idly stand by as this happens. You complain about immigrants costing the state money, however, you do not care about spending the same money to protect your own legal citizens. You say you have no money for immigrants but that’s because you are cutting money from programs everywhere including those which reduce crime. You will be feeding those funds into the soon to be too big to scale prison system. Cutting spending only shifts the cost from preparedness and healthy economy to more crime and suffering. Cutting spending does not cut cost.
Saturday 11 February 2012
While Hacking Alabama.gov’s site, Anonymous ran into some Startling Information (yours) – FreakOutNation
