A group of hackers who have attacked a number of Web sites in recent months said Sunday that they had stolen a small number of internal passwords and usernames from an Apple server.
The information was supposedly taken from a server used by Apple for online surveys and did not belong to the public or Apple customers. The data was posted publicly on pastebin, a file-sharing Web site.
Anonymous, the group claiming responsibility for the attack, is believed to be working closely with hackers who were involved in Lulz Security, a hacker group that disbanded last week after attacking a number of sites over the past two months, including PBS.org, the United States Senate, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Web site of a company associated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The latest breach, which only contains 27 internal Apple usernames and passwords, is a relatively small amount of data compared to attacks on other companies, but it underscores the potential for other attacks by Anonymous.
Apple could not be reached for comment to confirm whether the information was stolen from the company.
In the Twitter message about the data breach, hackers said Apple could become a larger target but that members were currently busy with other goals. “Apple could be target, too. But don’t worry, we are busy elsewhere,” the group wrote in the message.
Earlier this month Lulz Security claimed it had breached Apple’s iCloud servers, which are used for the company’s cloud music and photo service that is expected to launch later this year, but the group never posted any of this alleged information online.
This latest breach, and other recent attacks on corporate and government Web sites, is part of a growing movement by hackers called Anti Security, or AntiSec online. The public stated goal of this movement is to expose loopholes and software vulnerabilities on company and government Web sites and servers. Security experts and law enforcement see the string of AntiSec-labeled attacks as a justification by hackers to wreak havoc online.
