Vanguard Defense Industries Hacked By 'Anonymous'

LONDON (AP) -- A Texas-based defense and aerospace firm says one of its top officials has had his email account broken into by the hacking group Anonymous.

Vanguard Defense Industries' chief executive Michael Buscher says messages have been stolen from the private Gmail account of Richard T. Garcia, a former FBI agent who now works as the company's senior vice president.

Anonymous said in a statement it had pilfered 1 gigabyte of data – including personal information, internal meeting notes and several dozen counterterrorism documents which it claimed were marked "law enforcement sensitive" or "for official use only."

But Buscher told the Associated Press "there isn't anything sensitive" in the released material. He said the hackers had not been able to breach the company's servers or its website, which appeared to operating as normal Friday.

Buscher's Houston-area company specializes in the design and development of drones for law enforcement and the private sector. The hackers claimed to have stolen schematics – an apparent reference to the plans used for building unmanned aircraft – but Buscher denied that was the case.

"Those schematics are actually the spec sheets for the aircraft," he said, adding that the information had been publicly available on the company's website for months.

Anonymous, an informal group of hackers which has coalesced online over the past several years, has carried out campaigns against the Church of Scientology and financial companies such as MasterCard Inc. and PayPal Inc., which it attacked over their embargo on secret-spilling website WikiLeaks.

Following arrests of several suspected members of the group by international law enforcement, the group has increasingly turned its attention to the military, defense contractors, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Some of its most recent high-profile victims include Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. and ManTech International Corp., which among other things provides cybersecurity services to the FBI.

Anonymous said its latest stunt wasn't only intended to cause "embarrassment and disruption" to Vanguard Defense Industries but also "to send a strong message to the hacker community."

"White hat sellouts, law enforcement collaborators, and military contractors beware: We're coming for your mail spools, bash history files, and confidential documents," it said.

Comments

[gerrycam]

12:12 PM on 08/22/2011

Interesting that in the futuristic novels by Orwell and Huxley "Big Brother" was perceived to be a repressive Oligarchic government in a dystopian society when the reality is that it has become a cadre of computer hackers with no public mandate and no moral authority.

[heroine addict]

11:07 AM on 08/22/2011

What is with HP's refusal to mention "Anonymous" in headlines?

"Today in ironic censorship."

[dbdel]

12:50 AM on 08/22/2011

Not only is "anonimity" dead, apparently so is the post-it note writer's education.

Not sent from anonymity....but from me.

[snooty]

03:32 PM on 08/21/2011

I support Anonymous 100% - Be very careful who you trust and keep going- Take down Global banks and brokerage houses !!!!!

[insider6]

02:31 PM on 08/21/2011

Continued from above

5) July 2011, Garcia is the Keynote speaker at the FBI National Academy Conference in Long Beach, CA. In front of nearly 600 Federal, State and local officials he conducts a 1 hour presentation on "Penetrating the Hacker Community" which ends with a standing ovation.
6) August 1, 2011, Garcia is appointed to the executive board of FBI's Infraguard (InfraGard is a partnership between the FBI and the private sector to secure the internet, see www.infragard.net...)
7) Not seeing beyond the obvious, "Anonymous/AntiSec" now view Garcia as a "legitimate target" due to his appointment to Infraguard.
8) August 15, 2011, AntiSec begins posting blogs that they have "breached" Vanguard Defense Industries and the emails of Sr. VP Richard Garcia and intends to post the classified documents and details on August 19th.
9) August 19, 2011. The Gmail emails of Garcia are posted reveling NOTHING sensitive or classified. Most emails appear more like press releases.
10) August 20, 2011, 0745 GMT, 3 individuals are arrested in Liverpool, UK and 2 in London for "Cyber crimes related to an event which occurred against a firm near Houston, Texas"

For those of you who smelled something "fishy" on this hack from the beginning, good for you.

[Eris23]

08:29 PM on 08/21/2011

Do you have a link to the story on the August 20 arrests?

[insider6]

09:48 PM on 08/26/2011

bloomberg, Washington, post, wall street journal to name a few, just search under "22 year old Peter David Gibson" 5 others were also arrested.

[insider6]

02:30 PM on 08/21/2011

Please see the facts related to the "hack" by AntiSec below. Ultimately i a "hack" appears too simple than there is probably a reason why you have been "let in";

1) Mid-2000, Special Agent Richard Garcia is personally appointed by FBI Director Robert Mueller to head the largest Counterintelligence Cyber task Force in U.S. Federal Government History.
2) February 2001, Garcia is personally credited with capturing FBI spy Robert Hassen through a complex cyber rat trap (Please read any of the 58 books available on the case, or if your not a reader, which I'm guessing your not, rent the movie "Breach" in which actor Gary Cole portrayed Garcia, characters name changed to Garces since he was still a serving FBI agent at the time of release ).
3) 2007, Garcia retires from the FBI after 25 years and is hired by Shell Oil as the Global Security manager overseeing the 4th largest corporation on the globe including the most advanced cyber-network protection program. Despite 2,300+ attempted hacks, zero successful penetrations reported during his tenure.
4) December 2010-January 2011, According to Texas Workforce Commission records, Garcia leaves Shell to accept an offer as the Senior Vice President in charge of the Law Enforcement Applications Division at Vanguard Defense Industries

(Continued next post -)

[macewan]

12:16 PM on 08/21/2011

Appears my previous comment was deleted by a mod.

[Rational Thought Plz]

09:26 PM on 08/20/2011

It's really hard to feel bad for a defense company that keeps all their CLASSIFIED information on a NETWORKED COMPUTER.

It isn't even about right or wrong, it is about common sense. If you have thousands of dollars, you keep it somewhere safe, not walk around with it in your pocket.

[gerrycam]

12:24 PM on 08/22/2011

Funny, there seems to be this attitude amongst hackers and their supporters that it's an ok activity because they aren't smart enough to keep their systems secure. I read about the same philosophy once before. A petty thief was asked why he snatched purses from old ladies. His response was "because it's so easy." I don't believe for a minute the altruistic reasons hackers profess as their motivation. They do it to see if they can and to gain the admiration and respect of their peers.

[Rational Thought Plz]

06:02 PM on 08/22/2011

I said nothing about their motives. I would agree that there is nothing altruistic about them. However, an old woman and a purse snatcher is more akin to a hacker who is stealing individual identities. I feel bad for the victim in both cases. For a defense contractor, safety and security are their business. I do not have the same amount of pity for them.

[drumz]

01:38 PM on 08/20/2011

He uses a free email account? Not only is he very ignorant but cheap too, who woulda thunk I mean after all, he has to be a con...

[LightShadow62]

12:56 PM on 08/20/2011

"A Texas-based defense and aerospace firm says one of its top officials has had his email account broken into by the hacking group Anonymous."

In other words this 'top official' used a common password, maybe '12345'. This is base level stuff, research based hacking as opposed to actual code based intrusions.

[S Pesticide]

06:05 PM on 08/20/2011

lol you're awesome!

[Baracous]

03:24 AM on 08/21/2011

This a little more than someone breaking into your account because ; you used a birth date as your password. Do you know anything about hacking, that you didn't see in a movie?

[LightShadow62]

08:18 AM on 08/21/2011

Actually, yes I do know more than the general public. They reported a 'hack' on his Gmail account. This action requires little more than some knowledge about the person and some patience.

[cysocial]

10:25 AM on 08/20/2011

Some how there has to be an all out effort to find, prosecute and jail everyone in Anonymous. Then put them solitary for the rest of time with nothing but and Apple SE and no internet. There actions are not a joke or laudable. Their leaders are as bad as those they portray as worthy of being hacked.

[drumz]

01:42 PM on 08/20/2011

I support Anonymous 1000% Next up record purge.

[MrDoughnut]

09:48 AM on 08/20/2011

Maybe they work for the government or company an they are testing the systems to determine if their protected from hackers. The system failed now you know! End the visa program before they destroy America!

[Dennis Timlin]

09:48 AM on 08/20/2011

Development of drones for law enforcement and the private sector? sounds to me like there's a vital story behind this that needs to be told. I doubt they will be used to track the movement of consumers during the "four weeks 'till Christmas" rush. This just answered my questions about the previous post's submitted by the sleeping sheeple. Is it really criminal / death warranting for hacktavist's to expose the building of spy arsenals for government and coporations to use against us ? Did'nt see this story on Faux News......But it's alright if they pursue an arsenal to invade our privacy, make sure we remain obedient, productive little consumer's who toe their line while they find more ways to dumb us down and control us. These are crimes against Humanity ! My mask is on for the brothers and sisters of Anon, AntiSec, Lulzsec. They are the only media left that exposes truth. MSM has not been newsworthy ever. WAKE UP! theres a war against us going on and your in it sleeping or not.

[MrDoughnut]

09:40 AM on 08/20/2011

Sorry I'm pulling for Lockheed,Boeing,and Grumman to create jobs in NJ

[S Pesticide]

06:06 PM on 08/20/2011

let us know how that works out.

[Inannawhimsey]

05:37 PM on 08/21/2011

Jobs are old school and are being phased out, what is coming is actual work that benefits people & our planet. One of the reasons for the terrible kerfuffle that is going on globally -- when major changes happen, there is turmoil.

[MrDoughnut]

09:36 AM on 08/20/2011

Might be those H1B's and L1's up to no good.