Arizona web site was struck on Thursday June 23 by computer hackers who had broken into the server of U.S. Senate earlier and brought down CIA web site. As a result, a dozen of internal documents have been released over the Internet. The released documents are concerned with border control and law obedience as reported by Lulz Security which observes the opposition of a rigid anti-immigration law in Arizona in this case.
Data about a half gigabyte in size have been released till now which includes account names, passwords and contact details of various people. Two of them were reached out by Reuters to establish the accuracy. On scanning the documents, it was revealed that the files seemed to be other law agencies’ security bulletins, internal planning documents and also regular reports of traffic incidents.
Steve Harrison, a spokesperson at the Arizona Department of Public Safety said that they are aware of the computer issues and are looking into it and discussions are on regarding additional security safeguards. Last year a law was passed by the Mexico border state to control illegal immigration and border-related crime. It ordered the police to examine the immigration status of anyone suspected to be illegally in the United States. This measure was supported by quite a few Americans but it was charged by the outraged resisters as unconstitutional and would result in harassment of Hispanic-Americans and demanded an economic boycott of the desert states. A federal judge blocked its most controversial components before it came into effect last July even though Arizona is appealing.
LulzSec consists of rogue hackers whose identity is not yet known. The publicized attacks by LulzSec on Sony Corp., CIA, and New Corp’s Fox TV and few other targets have primarily caused temporary disruption of certain websites and also leaking of user credentials. British police has arrested a 19-year old youth suspecting his connection to the assaults on Sony, CIA and a unit of British police that fights against organized crime.
Anonymous is another hacking group that has formed a team with LulzSec. Spanish police also nabbed three men suspecting their connection with Anonymous. On Thursday which was a day after cyber attacks disabled government websites for a while, attacks made Brazil bring down its presidential website temporarily.
Security experts believe LulzSec originated from Anonymous, which attained fame for attackers of WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. The group has named itself by compounding lulz, which is an informal word for laughs and sec, meaning security.