Stratfor hacker sentenced

November 16, 2013

Jeremy Hammond, the man responsible for the 2011 attack on Strategic Forecasting Inc., better known as Stratfor, pled guilty to his role in the attack and was sentenced on Friday to serve ten years in federal prison. However, Hammond's supporters maintain that his sentencing, indeed the case itself, was unbalanced and rife with problems from the beginning. In 2011, the AntiSec movement was resurrected in name. Those supporting AntiSec used its name to target governments, law enforcement, and the private businesses that associated with them. One such business was Strategic Forecasting Inc., better known as Stratfor, a firm in Austin, Texas that provides "geopolitical intelligence" to individuals and organizations across the globe. Earlier this past May, Jeremy Hammond admitted that he was responsible for the Stratfor incident as part of a plea agreement reached with the U.S. attorney's office. In December of 2011, Hammond—encouraged by fellow-AntiSec supporter Hector Xavier Monsegur (a.k.a. Sabu), who was a cooperating witness for the FBI at the time—breached Stratfor's servers, by exploiting a vulnerability in the Plesk management system used to support the company's website. Once access was granted, Hammond downloaded various archives containing poorly protected email addresses and passwords, and a backup copy of Stratfor's corporate email. Prior to Hammond's involvement, another person compromised Stratfor's credit card processing, and stole some 60,000 records. The breach was made public by AntiSec on December 24, 2011. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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