US Census Bureau IT systems hacked, data leaked by Anonymous

Anonymous hackers have swiped databases from servers used by the US Census Bureau, and dumped their contents online. The bureau, as you might imagine, collects information on the American population every 10 years – although the leaked data does not include citizens' census records. The purloined bureau databases include the …

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

Not part of their internal system but they lost a database full of names and (hashed) passwords along with who are the administrators.

Offsite backups of sensitive data are becoming more commonplace for US gov departments nowadays :-)

[Mephistro]

Typo in the article

"...TTIP and TPP, which the US and other nations are negotiating."

Should be:

"...TTIP and TPP, which the US is trying to force down other nations throats."

Please, Elreg, stop moving around the corrections button.

;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is precisely why...

... all hackers should be executed. Then they will never hack again.

[Elmer Phud]

Re: This is precisely why...

When the biggest culprits are those in charge . . .

Where are you going to build such a long wall?

[Fatman]

Re: This is precisely why...

<quote>Where are you going to build such a long wall?</quote>

China has one that might suffice!

[Preston Munchensonton]

Re: This is precisely why...

As they say, those who win the war write the history. Fortunate for the rest of us that you will never win.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: This is precisely why... @ AC

Would you care to be more specific about what there is in this particular trivial incident that makes you cut and paste your usual crap??

[Mark 85]

Re: This is precisely why...

It's already been established that your solution won't work. They multiply like flies and like flies are prone to do, they eat crap and bother people.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This is precisely why...

You (the register is also guilty) shouldn't use words you don't know the meaning of. You certainly shouldn't make "moral judgements" on an entire class of people that you apparently know nothing at all about. The westboro babtist church are just one example of people who make asses of themselves by doing things like that publicly.

Apparently the guilty parties are likely 2 people:

1. I bet there was a sloppy programmer writing code that would run on a server containing sensitive data who probably allowed unsanitised user input to be treated as executable code. (assumption based on the database being sent to an outside party: I doubt there is such functionality to send a dump of the passwords to an outside source built-in as a desirable part of the system, and they apparently only got the database contents, which looks like SQL injection or something along those lines).

2. Possibly also the employee who apparently ignored basic security practice (assumption from the phishing training they are giving their staff in response).