In November, Anonymous hacked into the CSLEA website and stole personal information on 2,500 CSLEA members. On New Year’s Eve, the group posted the names, addresses, and phone numbers of those members, as well as credit card numbers obtained from the association’s online store, according to a report by KXTV Channel 10.
In response to the posting, the POC, a rival organization to CSLEA, asked California lawmakers to investigate CSLEA’s handling of the breach. POC said the emails published by Anonymous comprised 1,076 government emails, including 321 emails from the California Department of Justice.
“Given the very sensitive data available on such websites/email systems as the California Department of Justice and the Department of Motor Vehicles, the Peace Officers of California are very concerned about this breach of security. It would appear that unless many state peace officers current passwords and related firewalls are immediately modified, investigations throughout California law enforcement may become compromised. In reality who knows how many current cases may be harmed as a result”, POC wrote in a Jan. 2 letter to the committees on public safety at the statehouse in Sacramento.
“Especially troubling is that nearly two months have gone by since the FBI Cyber Crimes Unit notified CSLEA that their email and confidential information files had apparently been breached. Inexplicably, it appears there was no general notification from CSLEA to its peace officer members or alarm given to their parent state law enforcement agencies that their emails and interdepartmental communications may have been hacked or compromised”, the letter added.