{"id":24939,"date":"2024-07-22T07:10:13","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T15:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/22\/news-18669\/"},"modified":"2024-07-22T07:10:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T15:10:13","slug":"news-18669","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/22\/news-18669\/","title":{"rendered":"Heritage Foundation data breach containing personal data is available online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Heritage Foundation this month denied<\/a> that it had suffered an earlier system breach and the subsequent leaking of internal data. But the organization had to admit that cybercriminals gained access to an archive of Heritage’s affiliated media site, The Daily Signal, dating back to 2022. That archive reportedly contained content of Heritage and non-Heritage contributors’ personal information.<\/p>\n

Either way, a Malwarebytes review of the data shows over half a million usernames and passwords.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the back-and-forth claims are an alleged breach against the Heritage Foundation that SiegedSec, a politically motivated group, claimed to have carried out on July 2, 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The group said it released the data in response to Heritage Foundation\u2019s Project 2025, a set of proposals that aim to give Donald Trump a set of ready-made policies to implement if he wins this fall\u2019s election in the United States.<\/p>\n

The stolen data includes email addresses, usernames, passwords, phone numbers, IP addresses, full names, and may contain other compromised user details.<\/p>\n

SiegedSec also claimed to have over 200 gigabytes of additional \u201cmostly useless\u201d data, which they do not intend to release.<\/p>\n

The discrepancy in the claims lies in the fact that SiegedSec said it obtained passwords and other user information for \u201cevery user\u201d of a Heritage Foundation database. Heritage responded in saying that:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cAn organized group stumbled upon a two-year-old archive of The Daily Signal website that was available on a public-facing website owned by a contractor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A possible cause for the discrepancy is an earlier cyberattack<\/a> on the Heritage Foundation in April of 2024 which resulted in a shutdown of the organization\u2019s network to prevent further malicious activity. But the nature of that attack is unclear and it is impossible to say whether any data was stolen.<\/p>\n

Some sources, however, have reported that it was in fact a ransomware attack by the Play Group, which means that an attempt to steal data is still a possibility.<\/p>\n

Protecting yourself after a data breach<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach<\/a>.<\/p>\n