Anonymous hits US military drone manufacturer

VDI

Hacktivist group Anonymous is continuing with its AntiSec campaign, claiming to have swiped 1GB of data from a US Government contractor.

Anonymous said it had posted 1GB of private emails and documents from Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI), which supplies drones to the US military.

"This leak contains internal meeting notes and contracts, schematics, non-disclosure agreements, personal information about other VDI employees, and several dozen counter-terrorism' documents classified as law enforcement sensitive' and for official use only,'" Anonymous said.

"We are doing this not only to cause embarrassment and disruption to Vanguard Defense Industries, but to send a strong message to the hacker community. White hat sellouts, law enforcement collaborators, and military contractors beware: we're coming for your mail spools, bash history files, and confidential documents."

Anonymous paid special attention to senior vice president of VDI Richard Garcia, claiming the stolen emails were his. The hacktivist group said Garcia had not changed passwords since the release of the data.

We are doing this not only to cause embarrassment and disruption to Vanguard Defense Industries, but to send a strong message to the hacker community.

"Within the booty you may find lots of shiny things as we did not have time to follow up on all the data," Anonymous added.

"Safe to say, that despite previous disclosure in the media, Mr Garcia did not bother to change any of his many many passwords found in his spool at the time of this release."

Anonymous and loosely affiliated group LulzSec have gone after US defence contractors in earnest as part of their AntiSec activities.

In the past six months, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton and Mantech International have all been targeted.

Last year, a battle between Anonymous and HBGary saw the latter back out of the RSA security conference, claiming the hacktivist group had made threats at its trade show booth.

Tom Brewster

Tom Brewster is currently an associate editor at Forbes and an award-winning journalist who covers cyber security, surveillance, and privacy. Starting his career at ITPro as a staff writer and working up to a senior staff writer role, Tom has been covering the tech industry for more than ten years and is considered one of the leading journalists in his specialism.

He is a proud alum of the University of Sheffield where he secured an undergraduate degree in English Literature before undertaking a certification from General Assembly in web development.