Run for the hills!
HBGary, the security firm hacked by Anonymous has effectively gone into hiding as it fears for its employees' safety, following more details of how it apparently does business were leaked online.
According to the BBC, the firm has cancelled appearances at events because members of its staff have been threatened, following the leaking of documents, which appear to show that the company offered to smear WikiLeaks' supporters.
The firm apparently claims that its leaked messages could have been changed before publication. Its founder, Greg Hoglund had reportedly been booked to talk at the RSA Security Conference this week but pulled out, while the firm also backed out of an exhibition.
In a statement, the firm said: "HBGary individuals have received numerous threats of violence including threats at our tradeshow booth...In an effort to protect our employees, customers and the RSA Conference community, HBGary has decided to remove our booth and cancel all talks."
The emails obtained by Anonymous apparently contain a plan to undermine WikiLeaks at a time the site was planning on leaking documents about the Bank of America.
It has been reported that the emails also hint that the security firm had found evidence that US officials were trying to watch visitors to websites linked to al Qaeda.
An internal email sent in November 2009 by Hoglund, apparently said he had got hold of a document from a jihadist website and wrote: "I think it has a US govvy payload buried inside. Don't let it fone home unless you want black suits landing on your front acre."
Recent emails sent from within the company in January 2011apparently said the Hoglund sent out plans to create a spying programme or rootkit to run on Windows machines. "There isn't anything like this publicly," the proposal stated. It would be "almost impossible to remove" or detect, according to the alleged email.
Commenting on the emails, HBGary said: "A group of aggressive hackers known as "Anonymous" illegally broke into computer systems and stole proprietary and confidential information from HBGary, Inc. This breach was in violation of federal and state laws, and stolen information was publicly released without our consent... HBGary is continuing to work intensely with law enforcement on this matter and hopes to bring those responsible to justice."
The president of the firm, Penny Leavy, told the Beeb that the sheer amount of leaked emails made it tricky for the company to work out whether they have been tampered with.
"We do have e-mails that were changed and posted. Given that Anonymous has had these e-mails for days I would be highly suspect of them," she told the news service.
The whole Anonymous debacle started after the chief exec of HBGary Federal apparently threatened to reveal the identity of some Anonymous hacktivists, which led to the company's website and systems being hacked.
The hackers sent out Tweets as well as posting their logo on the company website and getting access to sensitive documents and emails, which were then splashed all over the web.
Graham Cluley of rival security firm Sophos, told Auntie: "The damage to HBGary's reputation from this incident is, quite frankly, enormous. No company deserves to be on the sharp end of a hacking attack like the one which hit HBGary, but it's particularly damaging when the victim is a specialist in the field of computer security."
Anonymous has previously said: "You brought this upon yourself... us teach you a lesson you'll never forget: don't mess with Anonymous."
