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Updated, 12:32
A HACKER from the Anonymous ‘hacktivist’ movement has accessed website passwords of a number of government employees and officials, and posted them online this evening.
A user posted the details in an online chat room used by the collective for its ‘#OpIreland’ campaign, which targets the websites of Irish governmental agencies in protest at government plans to introduce new legislation reinforcing the rights of copyright holders in the sharing of online materials.
The passwords were then widely disseminated on Twitter through an account used by the Swedish arm of the international movement.
Subsequent tweets from the Swedish account specifically referenced Seán Sherlock, the junior minister behind the plans for the new legislation, urging him to “hear the good people of Ireland or expect us!”
The distributed data showed what appeared to be the passwords for 19 user accounts, 17 of which belong to the Department of Foreign Affairs, used by staff in the Department to edit the website for Irish Aid, the government’s overseas development programme.
The other two accounts appeared to belong to staff at Arekibo, a digital media company credited as having designed the site.
The chat room used by Anonymous later identified the website of the Labour party, of which Sherlock is a member, as another target. It is understood that access to the site was disrupted for periods overnight as a result of that attack, though the site itself was not compromised.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said there had been “some unusual activity” on the Irish Aid site, which has since between taken offline by the Department and remains inaccessible this lunchtime.
“We are aware of website user login information being posted online,” the spokeswoman said. “The website server has been taken offline as a precautionary measure and the matter is being investigated by our IT specialists.
“This is an external service and is separate to the internal Department servers; these have not been affected.”
The attack follows earlier activity by Anonymous, which had previously engineered attacks on Sherlock’s own personal website, as well as those of the Departments of Finance and Justice.
Those websites were the subject of DDoS attacks, where websites are deliberately flooded with traffic in order to make them inaccessible, almost exactly a week ago. On that occasion, however, no sensitive data was thought to have been compromised.
Sherlock yesterday told a Dáil discussion on his plans that he would not be changing the proposed wording of his statutory instrument, despite the fears of opposition TDs and businesses that its current format could allow the courts to grant injunctions blocking access to major websites like YouTube or Facebook.
An online petition against the legislation, launched nine days ago, had attracted just under 80,000 signatures at the time of publication.
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‘We will continue to learn from these grave errors’ – RTÉ Director General”
You wont be around to learn from these grave errors, if the t.v licence fee payers have their way.
Is it time to shut down (the very expensive) RTE?
You cannot shut down the national broadcaster. There are many reasons why, public service being the main reason. A lot of what is broadcast will never be commercially viable in the private sector but is in the public interest. There are also various dooms day reasons scenarios in which we need one. If there was a war, major disaster or a number of other reasons that the government need to keep the public informed an have the platform to do this.
But I can agree with the need to streamline it and make it more economical, moving it away from the high paying civil service style organisation it is/was. But for the sake of our sanity, we do not want a TV industry that runs on the cheap, budget, lash it out model. Rte does a lot of things wrong but it also does a lot of very good programming that wouldn’t be possible in the private sector over here..
Sorry did the government just fine rte 200,000 of taxpayers money? Firstly that’s not even a years worth of Joe Duffy and secondly don’t they get their money from the government anyway.
Why is Noel Curran still director general? His position is completely untenable! A mistake of this magnitude can have no other outcome! He’s either stupid or incompetent! I
You will learn nothing from this RTE, you are a shoddy operation run by a very self-interest driven closed shop! You destroyed a mans name but would never make the same mistake with one of your own! I have no love for the Catholic church, just honest decent values of which you hold few!
It’s a crap station with a sub standard programme, so cut off the head of the snake
They don’t learn – Derek Mooney should be Head Of Marketing for the Northern Ireland Enterprise Board as he has done everything in his power to promote it since he started in RTE( a taxpayer funded station). He has admitted on air to shopping fortnightly for food, clothes, household goods, and furniture. I am surprised the advertisers keep advertising with the station as they actively promote job losses through shopping over the border. I hope when he needs a Garda, Fire Brigade, Hospital or Ambulance he rings the people whose jobs he supports. I wish he would get a job up north also as he earns too much down here from his different income streams – 1 man 1 job. Derek has how many different shows ? His greedyness and disrespect for the people who pay his wages is insulting and RTE have to have some responsibility in appointing him to other more lucrative roles in Montrose.
what fine for dropping the ball on the banking and property bubbles? lazy journalism won’t go away with a few trainings and a couple of resignations
Why is their no uproar about this. A man was accused of being a sex offender it might have being anybody thats reading this article. Mr.Noel Curran I call on you to resign.
How did he keep his job
Noel, I know something that you don’t.
Further details by searching in Google for ‘Windle stops swindle’
Cheers
Super Grass
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