Group hacks US police websites

Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

The group known as Anonymous said Saturday it hacked into some 70 mostly rural law- enforcement websites in the United States, a data breach that at least one local police chief said leaked sensitive information about an ongoing investigation.

The loose-knit international hacking collective posted a cache of data to the Internet early Saturday, including emails stolen from officers, tips that appeared to come from members of the public, credit-card numbers and other information.

Anonymous said it had stolen 10 gigabytes’ worth of data in retaliation for arrests of its sympathizers in the U.S. and Britain.

Tim Mayfield, a police chief in Gassville, Ark., told The Associated Press that some of the material posted online — including pictures of teenage girls in swimsuits — was sent to him as part of an ongoing investigation. He declined to provide more details.

Mayfield’s comments were the first indication that the hack might be serious. Since news of some kind of cyberattack first filtered out less than a week ago, various police officials said they were unaware of the hacking or dismissed it as nothing to worry about.

Though many of the leaked emails appeared benign, some of the stolen material seen by the AP carried sensitive information, including tips about suspected crimes, profiles of gang members and security training.

The emails mainly were from sheriffs’ offices in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Mississippi. Many of the websites were operated by a Mountain Home, Ark., media- services hosting company, and most, if not all, were either unavailable Saturday or had been wiped clean of content.

The company, Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing, declined to comment.