Hacker Claims Hit On China Defence Contractor

A hacker using the pseudonym of Hardcore Charlie has posted thousands of documents which he claims were taken in a network breach of China National Import & Export Corp (CEIEC), a defence contractor.

The files, which have yet to be confirmed as authentic, include details about US military transports and internal business dealings, Reuters reports.

Military leak

Hardcore Charlie, who said he was a friend of former LulzSec leader Hector Xavier Monsegur (better known as Sabu), claimed he had help in breaking into CEIEC’s computer systems. Among his aides was the hacker YamaTough, who has previously stolen and leaked old Symantec source code.

Charlie’s associate once used the strategy of mixing fake Indian military intelligence documents with genuine ones, a tactic that may have been employed with the CEIEC leak.

The breach was initially announced via Hardcore Charlie’s Twitter account on Monday, on which he wrote: “CHINA military contractor CEIEC owneed like hell! US military escort charts exposed to Taliban.”

This particular claim is flagged up in his Pastebin post where details about the incident, which allegedly involves a Ukrainian copper company, are separated from the main file dump in a Photobucket album.

Hardcore Charlie described himself as a 40-year-old Hispanic man in a country close to the US and said he was concerned that the contractor had access to sensitive data about the US war effort in Afghanistan.

News of the breach comes soon after it was revealed that hundreds of Chinese government websites were attacked by Anonymous China, a recent addition to the hacktivist collective. Approximately 500 sites were defaced or taken down, while some had email and phone details taken.

A message from the group said: “In the defaces and leaks in this day, we demonstrate our revolt to the Chinese system. It has to stop! We aren’t asking you for nothing, just saying to protest, to revolt yourself, to be the free person you always want to be!”

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