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There isn't a cop in the land who isn't familiar with the term "officer safety." But now there's a whole new area of concern that doesn't involve traffic stops and other routine work out on the street. This area of safety involves protecting officer's privacy as it relates to data that is stored in online databases. The problem has become serious enough that many police officers and organizations have been forced to take a crash course in online security.
This past August, when Northern California's Bay Area Rapid Transit agency turned off cell phone service to disrupt peaceful protests, the hacking group "Anonymous" breached BART's Web site and released personal information about cops who work for that agency saying that it was done as a form of protest.
Then the hackers struck again, this time grabbing sensitive information from the BART's Police Officers Association Web site. The attack resulted in the publication of data on over 100 BART officers.
"Leaked personal data, emails and passwords for 102 #BART police officers," read a post on Twitter in the name of "@YourAnonNews." A link to a Web site that contained the hacked data was also posted.
But it turns out the attack on the police association website wasn't the work of Anonymous, a group considered by authorities to be a sophisticated, organized group of computer experts.
Instead, the attack on the BART Police Officers Association web site was the work of an amateur first timer according to an article in the publication PC Mag.
Log files from Internet Relay Chat, a means of online communication that Anonymous favors, shows the attack was carried out by someone with no previous experience.
The text exchange is below:
"[08/17/11 11:18] Lamaline_5mg I don't want the media to know anything about the hackers.
[08/17/11 11:19] n0pants in what sense?
[08/17/11 11:19] Lamaline_5mg I am not a hacker. This is my first attack.
[08/17/11 11:19] n0pants ohwow
[08/17/11 11:19] n0pants that's pretty newsworthy too
[08/17/11 11:19] Lamaline_5mg I just got pissed about what bart did and learned a lot about Microsoft SQLi. "
Needless to say a lot of people in the law enforcement profession are having second thoughts about storing massive amounts of sensitive data Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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