Federal Reserve was hacked by Anonymous

Hacktivists affiliated with the Anonymous collective breached an internal web site of the US Federal Reserve, according to a report from Reuters. A spokesman for the US central bank said: "The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product," adding that the "exposure" was fixed rapidly and "is no longer an issue".

The hackers had released a spreadsheet with details of 4000 US bank executives as part of a campaign named "OpLastResort"; they announced the release on Twitter. Early reporting of the released information stated that it contained usernames, titles and hashed passwords, but according to a memo sent to members of the Federal Reserve's Emergency Communication System, what had been compromised was mailing address, business phone, mobile phone, business email and fax numbers. The memo said: "Despite claims to the contrary, passwords were not compromised".

The Federal Reserve's Emergency Communication System (ECS) is designed to help the Fed estimate how much damage a natural disaster may have done by allowing bank executives to send them updates if their operations have been affected. It appears that the contact information for this system is what was taken and published. The Federal Reserve says that all the individuals affected by the breach have been contacted.

(djwm)