Anonymous takes credit for Census Bureau hack

The hacking group Anonymous claims it has infiltrated the U.S. Census Bureau, pilfering and dumping troves of data, but apparently nothing from the Census itself.

Anonymous this week tweeted out links to data dumps that appear to be usernames, email addresses and phone numbers for the bureau’s 4,200 staff members. The incident comes just weeks after data breaches at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) exposed more than 22 million people’s sensitive data.

{mosads}The bureau confirmed it had been hacked.

“The U.S. Census Bureau is investigating an IT security incident relating to unauthorized access to non-confidential information on an external system that is not part of the Census Bureau internal network,” said a spokesman in a statement. “Access to the external system has been restricted while our IT forensics team investigates.”

According to Anonymous, the cyberattack was a protest against the ongoing free trade deals the U.S. is trying to negotiate with its European and Asian partners.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would lower trade barriers between the U.S. and European Union.

A second deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), would do the same between the North America and several Pacific Rim countries.

Proponents see the agreements as an economic boon and a way to standardize international labor and environmental laws.

But digital rights advocates have opposed the deals as potentially destructive to a free and open Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance, argued that TPP would “extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.”

The Census Bureau did not say exactly what data had been taken, but British tech news site The Register noted much of the leaked data was already available online before the hack.

“Security and data stewardship are integral to the Census Bureau mission,” the bureau spokesperson said. “We will remain vigilant in continuing to take every necessary precaution to protect all information.”