Austrian Government has almost received a shock when an AnonAustria, an Austrian hacker group publishes the personal data including the names, dates of birth and addresses of 25000 police officials, from beat officers to senior commanders.
The information were found on the Twitter account of AnnoAustria on the day before yesterday. Some people suspects that it was a move against the draft data-retention law, which would instruct the telecommunication companies to store detailed data of all internet and telephone for six months and supply them to police whenever they request. The Austrian News paper drew attention to the point that the hackers took that step some days after the announcement of investigation of attacks against various local political parties including the International Police Association, the freedom Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Green Party.
Police union official Walter Scharinger asserted that the incident is quite threatening to the police officers, who might be targeted by the criminals whom they have encountered before.
The Austria’s state Office of Criminal Investigation is now investing the case. According to the crime investigation team, the information that was posted by the hackers, were somehow leaked from some sources, rather than hacked. The Austrian group of hackers has commented on their twitter profile that the information was made available to them. Probably they are suspecting the country’s biggest association of police members, the Austrian branch of the International Police Association for the unwanted negligence or conscious crime. The members of the International Police Association are now being under enquiry although they are denying that any mistake or crime (of the information leakage) has made at their part. They have presented their proof of innocence by informing that they use an external service provider for managing member’s accounts.