Representatives of the United States Census Bureau have confirmed that hacktivists of the Anonymous movement have breached part of the organization’s systems.
The attackers have leaked thousands of usernames, passwords, email addresses, and other data obtained from a census.gov subdomain. The hackers said the attack was a form of protest against the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership(TTIP) trade agreements.
The Census Bureau said the hackers gained access to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC), hosted on harvester.census.gov, which is used to collect single audit reporting packages from state and local governments, and nonprofit organizations.
According to the Census Bureau, the FAC is hosted on an externally facing IT system that stores non-confidential data, such as the details of individuals submitting information. The investigation into this incident is ongoing, but the Census Bureau says it hasn’t found any evidence that other databases have been breached, or that the personal details of people who responded to censuses and surveys have been exposed.