FBI partner group struck by hackers

LONDON – Nearly 180 passwords belonging to members of an Atlanta-based FBI partner organization have been stolen and leaked to the Internet, the group confirmed Sunday.

The logins belonged to members of the local chapter of InfraGard, a public-private partnership devoted to sharing information about threats to U.S. physical and Internet infrastructure, the chapter’s president said.

“Someone did compromise the website,” InfraGard Atlanta Members Alliance President Paul Farley said in a brief email exchange. “We do not at this time know how the attack occurred or the method used to reveal the passwords.”

Copies of the passwords – which appear to belong to users from organizations including the U.S. Army, cybersecurity groups and major communications companies – were posted to the Internet by online hacking collective Lulz Security, which has claimed credit for a string of attacks in the past week.

In a statement, Lulz Security also claimed to have used one of the passwords to steal nearly 1,000 work and personal emails from the chief executive of Wilmington, Delaware-based Unveillance LLC.

Lulz Security claimed it was acting in response to a recent report that the Pentagon was considering whether to classify some cyberattacks as acts of war.

The FBI said Sunday that it was aware of the incident and that steps were being taken to mitigate the damage. Farley said that InfraGard’s website had been taken down and that members had been advised to change their passwords and beware of further attacks.

Farley added that his group – a volunteer organization – had had no previous involvement with Lulz Security, which describes itself as a collective of hackers who attack weakly protected websites for fun. Lulz is a reference to Internetspeak for “laugh out loud.”

Earlier Sunday, Nintendo said it had been targeted in a recent online data attack claimed by Lulz Security. Nintendo said no personal or company information was lost.