NATO Reports ‘Probable Data Breach’ to One of Its Websites

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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has just issued a short statement that reads as follows:

“Police dealing with digital crimes have notified NATO of a probable data breach from a NATO-related website operated by an external company. NATO’s e-Bookshop is a separate service for the public for the release of NATO information and does not contain any classified data. Access to the site has been blocked and subscribers have been notified.”

Earlier this month, hacker collective “Anonymous” issued a warning to NATO foreshadowing retaliation for a report that NATO had released in May that we reported “warned about the rising tide of politically-motivated cyberattacks, singling out Anonymous as the most sophisticated and high-profile of the known hacktivist groups.”

Anonymous’ response, in part, read, “This is no longer your world. It is our world – the people’s world.”

(MORE: ‘Anonymous’ Warns NATO: ‘This Is No Longer Your World’)

It’s unclear whether Anonymous is behind this attack against NATO’s e-Bookshop—to be honest, it sounds a little too “easy” to be an Anonymous job—but Anonymous and another big-name group making headlines nowadays, LulzSec, have joined forces to launch what they’re calling “Operation Anti-Security”—an operation that, in LulzSec’s own words, encourages “any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path.”

The document continues, “Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments.”

In the same statement revealing that its e-Bookshop had been compromised, NATO revealed that it formulated a “cyber defence action plan” earlier this month, which it says is already in motion:

“NATO’s Strategic Concept, approved last November, identifies cyber defence as one of the critical capabilities which the Alliance should develop to prevent, detect, defend against and recover from cyber-attacks. To deal with this growing threat, NATO defence ministers agreed this month on a cyber defence action plan. This action plan is already being implemented.”

Both Anonymous’ and LulzSec’s Twitter feeds have been relatively quiet as of late, though LulzSec claims it’s “hoping to have Operation Anti-Security Payload #1 ready by Friday”—meaning tomorrow. It’s believed to be a large data dump of sensitive information culled from targets of recent attacks.

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