The hacker group known as Anonymous has struck again. This time they’ve apparently hacked into CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and leaked secret documents with details that were not known to the public to the National Post:
Secrets about the foreign activities of Canada’s spy agency — including the size of its network of foreign stations, the volume of sensitive communications they handle and their deeply antiquated system of information sharing — are revealed in what is purported to be a sensitive government document hacked by Anonymous and released Monday in a vendetta against Canadian authorities.
The government has only publicly acknowledged three foreign stations of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) — in Washington, London and Paris — but a document marked with a security classification of “secret” and purportedly from the Treasury Board of Canada says there are 25 foreign stations, “many of which are located in developing countries and/or unstable environments.”
The stations are staffed by approximately 70 CSIS staff who handle approximately 22,500 messages per year — not including “the high volume of extremely sensitive traffic from the Washington station,” the document says.
If that doesn’t get your attention. This next sentence might:
“The tools to access and process intelligence information from these foreign stations have not been updated since the Service’s foreign collection activities began in the mid-1980s,” it says.
That should make Canadians wonder where their tax dollars are going. Assuming these documents are on the level. This data dump is in retaliation for the apparent shooting of a purported member of Anonymous member in BC by the RCMP. The group had demanded that the officer responsible face justice by 5PM PST yesterday to prevent this data dump. Now the group is promising more data dumps including this:
The Anonymous hackers say the document is one of many it has accessed.
“We are now privy to many of Stephen Harper’s most cherished secrets,” a spokesman said. “We will be releasing stunning secrets at irregular intervals.”
Activists with Anonymous, the global hacktivist group that has pulled shadowy operations from immature pranks to high-minded protests, claim the documents were taken during breaches of supposedly secure computers over the past few months.
The document release was accompanied by a video message, in the style Anon activists often use, making outsized claims of other information it is privy to. The video’s voice over — with no documentation or evidence provided — claims the Communications Security Establishment was caught spying on its intelligence allies prompting U.S. President Barack Obama’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Charming. I have four thoughts on this:
- Assuming that CSIS was hacked by Anonymous, which so far it appears to have been, this is yet another stunning example of the Government of Canada is completely unable to properly secure itself from cyberattacks. One has to wonder what it will take before the Government gets serious about this.
- I am willing to wager that for every person who says that Anonymous is evil for doing this sort of thing, there’s a person who loves what they’re doing because they’re exposing things that the government doesn’t want you to know about. Plus they perceive Anonymous as digital “Robin Hoods” who hold the powerful to account. That means that they are unlikely to be going anywhere and they are likely to continue these sorts of attacks.
- If this hack is on the level, which so far it appears to be, Anonymous has proven that when they say they have something, they deliver. So if they say that they have other documents that go right up to the level of Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, that should freak him and anyone who works for him out as this is an election year and he likely doesn’t need whatever Anonymous has out in public.
- You can bet that CSIS, the RCMP, and whomever else the Canadian Government can round up is actively trying to hunt these people down. Given that from all accounts that this is a decentralized group, the phrase “good luck with that” comes to mind.
I would stay tuned as this story is far from over.
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This entry was posted on July 28, 2015 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Hacked. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Anonymous Leaks Top Secret Docs In Retaliation For RCMP Shooting
The hacker group known as Anonymous has struck again. This time they’ve apparently hacked into CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and leaked secret documents with details that were not known to the public to the National Post:
Secrets about the foreign activities of Canada’s spy agency — including the size of its network of foreign stations, the volume of sensitive communications they handle and their deeply antiquated system of information sharing — are revealed in what is purported to be a sensitive government document hacked by Anonymous and released Monday in a vendetta against Canadian authorities.
The government has only publicly acknowledged three foreign stations of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) — in Washington, London and Paris — but a document marked with a security classification of “secret” and purportedly from the Treasury Board of Canada says there are 25 foreign stations, “many of which are located in developing countries and/or unstable environments.”
The stations are staffed by approximately 70 CSIS staff who handle approximately 22,500 messages per year — not including “the high volume of extremely sensitive traffic from the Washington station,” the document says.
If that doesn’t get your attention. This next sentence might:
“The tools to access and process intelligence information from these foreign stations have not been updated since the Service’s foreign collection activities began in the mid-1980s,” it says.
That should make Canadians wonder where their tax dollars are going. Assuming these documents are on the level. This data dump is in retaliation for the apparent shooting of a purported member of Anonymous member in BC by the RCMP. The group had demanded that the officer responsible face justice by 5PM PST yesterday to prevent this data dump. Now the group is promising more data dumps including this:
The Anonymous hackers say the document is one of many it has accessed.
“We are now privy to many of Stephen Harper’s most cherished secrets,” a spokesman said. “We will be releasing stunning secrets at irregular intervals.”
Activists with Anonymous, the global hacktivist group that has pulled shadowy operations from immature pranks to high-minded protests, claim the documents were taken during breaches of supposedly secure computers over the past few months.
The document release was accompanied by a video message, in the style Anon activists often use, making outsized claims of other information it is privy to. The video’s voice over — with no documentation or evidence provided — claims the Communications Security Establishment was caught spying on its intelligence allies prompting U.S. President Barack Obama’s opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Charming. I have four thoughts on this:
I would stay tuned as this story is far from over.
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This entry was posted on July 28, 2015 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Canada, Hacked. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.