Thousands warned of charity hacking threat

Tens of thousands of people and thousands of companies have been told their bank accounts could be at risk after hackers stole credit card details and personal data held by a US security company.

Anonymous, the loose-knit hacking network known for its repeated, politically motivated attacks on corporations, claimed on Christmas day it would use the stolen details to make $1m worth of donations to charities. Several clients of Stratfor, the Texas-based private security company, confirmed that their accounts had been used for unauthorised transactions to charities such as the Red Cross and Save the Children.

Hackers also published Stratfor’s highly confidential client list, which included banks, such as Barclays and HSBC, defence contractor BAE Systems and large corporations such as Apple ad BT.

Stratfor was on Tuesday trying to play down the incident, saying on its Facebook site that this was not a list of companies it had relationships with, but merely a record of those that had bought the company’s publications.

However, Stratfor said it had hired external security consultants to investigate the incident, as well as an identity theft monitoring company to help the potential victims. It advised customers to monitor their accounts carefully and to contact their banks and the US Federal Trade Commission if they saw any unauthorised activity.

Stratfor’s servers and email have been suspended.

It issued a warning on Monday that individuals who had spoken out publicly against the hacking attack might be targeted and have their personal details published on websites. The company urged people to either refrain from commenting on Facebook, or to take extra precautions if they did.