Anonymous hacks U.S. State Department and investment firm, leaks data

Anonymous continues with its Operation Last Resort, and its latest targets were the websites of the U.S. Department of State (state.gov) and of investment firm George K. Baum and Company (gkbaum.com).

From the former they exfiltrated - and published - databases containing a treasure trove of personal information about their employees (names, birth dates, phone numbers, email addresses, home and work addresses, and so on).

“Our reasons for this attack are very simple. You’ve imprisoned or either censored our people. […] Basically, you tried to put an end to us and you got owned, there’s nothing more you can say or do. You took away Topiary, Avunit, Neuron, Pwnsauce, lolspoon, Aaron Swartz shall we go on?” they wrote in a not accompanying the leak, reiterating that Operation Last Resort has been launched in memory of recently tragically deceased Internet activist Aaron Swartz.

George K. Baum and Company’s website was defaced, and a link to a ZeroBin post containing details of their customers’ accounts (names, email addresses, passwords and more) in clear text was published on it.

According to a post on the @OpLastResort Twitter account, the investment firm was hit because its Vice President Joshua Magden was a client of Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting Inc.), a US-based think-tank that Anonymous hacked in December 2011.