Anonymous leaks FBI conference call on hacking investigations
Anonymous resumed today its F**k FBI Friday campaign by publishing a 16-minute-long mp3 recoding of a confidential conference call between representatives of the FBI and the Scotland Yard. The subject of the call? Anonymous itself.
The link to the recording was posted on several of the hacker organization’s Twitter accounts and was accompanied by a Pastebin post that included an intercepted email that obviously allowed them to listen in on the aforementioned conversation.
The email was sent by FBI Special Agent Timothy Lauster, Jr, to 40+ law enforcement agents from the US, UK, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and France, inviting them to listen in on the “Anon-Lulz International Coordination Call” scheduled for January 17, and sharing the phone number and access code for doing so.
During the call, a US and a UK law enforcement officers did the talking and discussed the various investigations related to Anonymous, LulzSec and other splinter groups.
They mentioned various alleged Anonymous members by name and handle, but the hacker group bleeped out the names of those who are not yet arrested. They left in the names of Jake Davis (a.k.a Topiary) and Ryan Cleary, both of whom have been detained by the police and had their names revealed to the public.
According to the IBT, the agents also discussed a 15-year-old hacker that goes by the handle “TehWongZ”, who was apparently behind the Steam hack and has agreed to cooperate with law enforcement after “a clip round the ear” from his parents.
When the registration of the phone call was first posted online, there was some speculation that Anonymous might have faked it, but the FBI and Scotland Yard have since confirmed it took place.
“The information was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained. A criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible,” said the FBI in a statement.
I don’t doubt that all the recipients of the intercepted email have already been advised to change their email passwords and check their computers for information-stealing malware – it seems obvious that the hackers have compromised the email account of one or more of them.
In the meantime, Anonymous continued its campaign and compromised and defaced the website of the Boston police department.