Census Bureau Hacked By Anonymous


Anonymous, the hacktivist group, claimed that it had hacked the United States Census Bureau. The group also claimed that some of the personal information they had in possession ended up being posted online.

On Friday, the Census Bureau, which is the agency responsible for producing data in regards to America’s economy and people, said that one of its computers were hacked into and they are investigating the breach. According to NBC, the agency’s director, John H. Thompson, said that the Census Bureau was hacked in an attempt to gain access to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse. The Federal Audit Clearinghouse is stored on an IT system, which contains data that includes names of the person who is submitting the info, as well as phone numbers, site usernames, and things of that nature. Thompson said that the information stored on the system is non-confidential.

A spokesperson for the Census Bureau said that as the IT forensics team investigates the incident, access will be restricted to the external system. The spokesperson continued to say that the Census Bureau will make sure they do whatever it takes to protect all information.

According to Business Insider, as a result of the Census Bureau being hacked, more than 4,000 workers’ data has been compromised. Anonymous did not go into specif details about how they hacked the Census Bureau and got the data.

However, the group did say why they hacked the Census Bureau. They claim they did it to protest the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, as well as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. Supporters of the TTIP and TPP say that the negotiations are designed to improve trade relations between the nations that are participating in the negotiations.

According to CBS, Anonymous’ objections to the trade agreements are not really that clear. At some point after the Census Bureau was hacked, the group did send out a Tweet, apparently confirming the hack.

The Census Bureau is not the only government agency that has been hacked in the last few months. A few weeks ago, the United States Office of Personnel Management confirmed that it was hacked and the number of employees that were affected by the breach was estimated to be around 4 million, which was less than the initial estimate, which was over 21 million, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

Unlike the Census Bureau hacking incident, the OPM data breach was largely blamed on hackers from China. China’s government denied having anything to do with the breach, and American officials are continuing to investigate the OPM breach.

[Image via Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons]

Share this article: Census Bureau Hacked By Anonymous
More from Inquisitr