Anonymous takes credit for hack that exposes 2.4 million Syrian e-mails

URL: http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/07/anonymous-takes-credit-for-syrian-emails-hack/

Members of the Anonymous hacking collective are taking credit for the theft of more than 2.4 million e-mails from Syrian governmental officials and contractors that were later published by WikiLeaks.

The whistle-blower website announced the massive document dump on Thursday. The cache includes communications from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including the Ministries of Presidential Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Finance, Information, Transport, and Culture, WikiLeaks officials said. In all, the leak includes 2.4 million e-mails sent from 678,752 different addresses to more than 1 million recipients. It comes amid a government crackdown on dissidents that has killed as many as 15,000 Syrians in the past 18 months, according to some estimates.

"The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in Thursday's press release. "It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it."

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments