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A man wearing an Anonymous mask joins demonstors protesting against the world financial system during a march on November 12, 2011 in Berlin. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
The activist hacker group Anonymous, in their latest attack, said on Thursday that it recorded a phone conversation between U.K. police and the FBI, releasing it to the public.
Via one of its Twitter accounts, the group said, “The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now.”
Anonymous first posted an intercepted e-mail from FBI officials on the website Pastebin.
“A conference call is planned for next Tuesday (January 17, 2012) to discuss the on-going investigations related to Anonymous, Lulzsec, Antisec, and other associated splinter groups,” the FBI e-mail reads.
The group was also able to upload a 16-minute conversation onto sites including YouTube, which discusses security endeavors against various hacker groups.
British police told Reuters that they are investigating the incident.
“We are aware of the video, which relates to an FBI conference call involving a PCeU (Police Central e-crime Unit) representative,” London’s Metropolitan Police (MPS) said in a statement obtained by the news agency.
“The matter is being investigated by the FBI. At this stage no operational risks to the MPS have been identified; however, we continue to carry out a full assessment.”
The FBI told The Associated Press that the information “was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained.”
“A criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible,” the agency added.
Graham Cluley, who writes for security company Sophos, said the hackers were able to listen in and record the conversation because they hacked into FBI e-mail accounts. “The assumption has to be that an Anonymous hacker had access to one of the recipients’ email accounts, and thus had secret access to the confidential call,” he writes.
“No doubt the police authorities will be appalled to realize that the very people that they are trying to apprehend, could have been tuning in to their internal conversations,” Cluley adds.