Anonymous Hacks Police Forum, Sends Emails To Officers

Members of the ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous broke into the UKPoliceonline.co.uk community website and got their hands on email addresses of a number of active and retired police officers.

The breach was discovered when one former officer received a message from the group addressed “to the police and armed forces”. In the message, Anonymous asks the law enforcement agencies to join its protest campaign on Bonfire Night, date of special significance to the movement.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November

Scotland Yard has admitted that the forum was hacked, but said no other police systems were breached, reports the BBC. The Metropolitan Police’s e-Crime unit (PCeU) is now handling the investigation.

“It would appear that a third party forum has been compromised and personal email details retrieved,” Met said in a statement. It has advised officers on the measures to protect their personal data in the future.

In the statement, Anonymous requests assistance from the police, urging officers to “stand with us, not against us”.

“Under your uniform you are one of us and we are you. United we stand and can make this world a better place for all of us.”

“We are not against you, only against the evil system that you defend, and we appeal to your consciences to stop protecting the traitors and banksters, and protect us from them instead,” reads the email.

The messages were part of ‘Operation Jubilee‘, a campaign announced in September which will culminate in a peaceful rally to Parliament to declare the ‘True Jubilee’ on Guy Fawkes Night, 5 November.

A lot of effort has been put into organising Operation Jubilee. However, its aims cannot be seen as anything but naïve: ‘cancel all debt’, ‘stop war’, ‘redistribute the land’ and ‘eliminate poverty ‘.

Earlier this month, as part of the same campaign, hackers had defaced websites PoliceSpecials.com and PoliceUK.com, redirecting users to a page displaying a video statement by the group.

Although they share common values, various Anonymous cells rarely have a common course of action. Last week, a part of the movement calling itself Fawkes Security attacked HSBC, and a week before, Team GhostShell published data stolen from over 50 universities worldwide.

Earlier in October, the movement united in criticising WikiLeaks, after the whistleblower website decided to put some of its content behind a ‘paywall’ to encourage donations.

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