Hacktivists with the online collective Anonymous have released a recording of a sensitive phone call between officials with the FBI, Scotland Yard and other foreign police agencies related to ongoing investigations into hacking.
The conference call, which occurred Jan. 17, focused on the continued investigative efforts against hacktivists associated with Anonymous, LulzSec, Antisec and other related groups. In addition to uploading the recording to YouTube, Anonymous also posted an email with the call-in details to Pastebin.
According to reports, the FBI has said the call “was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained,” but FBI systems were not breached. A criminal investigation is reportedly underway to identify anyone involved in the incident. A report in the New York Times quoted an unnamed FBI official as stating that Anonymous had gained access to the call because a foreign police official invited to attend had forwarded the conference call invite to a personal account Anonymous had compromised.
“Whoever has uploaded the recording of the conference call has bleeped out names of some alleged hackers who have not yet been apprehended (leaving just their nicknames audible) but others are named in the call,” noted Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Sophos, in a blog post. “For instance, Jake Davis (suspected by the authorities of being “Topiary”, the public face of the Anonymous and LulzSec hacktivist groups) and Ryan Cleary (who is alleged to have launched a DDoS attack on the Serious Organised Crime Agency’s website), are clearly named and their cases discussed.”
The leak of the phone call is just one of a string incidents tied to Anonymous during the past 24 hours. Members of the group were also linked to attacks on websites belonging to the Salt Lake City and Boston police departments, as well as the site of law firm Puckett & Faraj, PLLC. According to reports, hackers stole more than 3GB of documents from the firm related to the case of U.S. Marine Frank Wuterich, who recently pleaded guilty to charges relating to the killing of civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005.
