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Hackers have launched an attack against the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) website. This is an attack after BART shut down cellphone and wifi services during a protest over a police shooting.
According to a report on CNET, a database which belonged to the BART Police Officers Association was posted online yesterday, with full names, home addresses, passwords and email addresses.
No one has yet acknowledged the attack, and the twitter account which is associated with high profile hacking group Anonymous said that no one has claimed responsibility for the hack.
Security company Sophos have said “A database belonging to the BART Police Officers Association appears to have been hacked, and the names, postal and email addresses of officers posted online.
Just over 100 officers are listed in the document, in what is clearly a serious security breach.
The reason why BART is the focus for so much attention by hackers? Last week, in a highly controversial move, several BART stations in San Francisco halted their cellphone service for a few hours. It was believed that people protesting about the fatal shooting of a homeless man by BART police, might be co-ordinating their protest via mobile phone.
Of course, what's happened now is that over 100 innocent police officers have had their safety put at risk by hackers revealing their private information.”
Anonymous added “If the media paid more attention to peaceful protests and general social unrest, hackers would be far less inclined to do things such as leaking data just to get the attention of the press.”
Kitguru says: Police officers lives put at risk? We would think so.
Probably a splinter group from one of the major teams.
The Police are trained to defend themselves. If people should be worried about anyone, its whoever could be the next target of the next psychotic gun-toting maniac who calls him/her self a “Law Enforcement Officer,” like this Homeless dude which probably posed a threat to nobody was.
If Police have possible repercussions to fear, it might make them think twice. We live in a world where power is everything. If this continues to be a response to further Police Shootings, then Police might decide to start thinking twice in the future.
Its not very nice, but its not like there’s a very long list of options to choose from.