Hacker collective Anonymous has taken credit for accessing and releasing a second list containing information for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) contacts – less than 12 hours after an initial list was released publicly.
Contained within an email from the presumed hackers that was sent to SCMagazine.com on Thursday is a link to another list of FEMA contacts' names, email addresses, phone numbers and organizations.
Many of the contacts are from law enforcement agencies and police and fire departments around the United States, but there also was contact information relating to several technology and military organizations, including firearms-maker Israel Military Industries and General Dynamics Information Technology.
“We are more than happy to continue to process and release these leaks, though we would appreciate at some point if there was a tacit understanding and confirmation that this is not in any way, shape or form a fake or 'alleged' system compromise,” read the email, which implied that the group will go public with the new list in about a day.
This statement is in response to speculation that information contained within the list is publicly available online, depending on how hard one digs.
A spokesperson with FEMA has yet to respond to a Wednesday email and a Thursday morning phone call.
News of the initial release of FEMA contacts was tweeted out throughout Wednesday from several Twitter accounts related to Anonymous – first by @blackplans, but then later by highly followed YourAnonNews account – perhaps confirming that Anonymous hackers are responsible for the breach. No person or group has come forward contesting Anonymous is responsible.
As with the previous release, some information was said to have been redacted. Anonymous said in the release on Wednesday that logins, passwords, Social Security numbers and other details were removed to prevent genuine endangerment of the United States.
“[O]ur intent is not to harm, merely to issue a firm warning,” Anonymous wrote yesterday.
In its initial document, Anonymous drew references to the National Security Agency (NSA) spy program PRISM, to Edward Snowden, who exposed it, and to a 2012 FEMA cyber exercise that the hacktivist group said painted hackers as criminals and justified programs such as PRISM.
UPDATE: A FEMA spokesperson, in response to inquiries from SCMagazine.com, said, "We are aware of this reported release of information to the media. FEMA is closely working with the DHS National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and investigating this."
