Stratfor Data Breach

What happened

In December 2011, "Anonymous" attacked the global intelligence company known as "Stratfor" and consequently disclosed a veritable treasure trove of data including hundreds of gigabytes of email and tens of thousands of credit card details which were promptly used by the attackers to make charitable donations (among other uses). The breach also included 860,000 user accounts complete with email address, time zone, some internal system data and MD5 hashed passwords with no salt.

Exposed data

Recommended actions

• Change your Stratfor password immediately, and update it anywhere you reused the same password.
• Enable two-factor authentication on the affected account and on your critical services (email, banking).
• Watch for targeted phishing emails referencing Stratfor — attackers weaponise breach data quickly.
• Monitor your bank and card statements closely and consider requesting a card replacement.
• Stay alert for smishing (SMS phishing) and SIM-swap attempts using your phone number.