US military contractor hack compromises 90,000 email addresses

Hackers claim to have stolen 90,000 email addresses and passwords from US military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

Information gleaned from the attack was later posted onto file sharing site The Pirate Bay under the title: 'Military Meltdown Monday: Mangling Booz Allen Hamilton'.

The hack is believed to have been undertaken by the Anonymous hacking group.

Chester Wisniewski, senior security adviser at security firm Sophos, explained in his blog that the hackers may be looking to use the information to infect further computers in the US military.

"There is demand for information about individuals related to the US defence industry that can then be used to compromise further computers.

"The purpose isn't so much to gain access to the email accounts themselves, but rather to use email as the vehicle through which they can infect the host computer with malware."

The information posted on The Pirate Bay shows imagery relating to Anonymous, and carries the #Antisec tag often used by the group and the now disbanded Lulzsec.

Anonymous claims to have deleted 4GB of source code during the attack and found information that may aid future cyber attacks on related organisations within the US military or its suppliers.

Wisniewski recommended that companies view this as a warning to tighten their own security.

"Could we please see these hacking attacks as a shot across the bow? Now is the time to secure your data. Encryption is NOT optional," he said.