US Census Bureau hacked by "Anonymous" hackers

Hackers linked to the group Anonymous have showed off that they have successfully hacked the United States Census Bureau. They have obtained sensitive data from 4,200 Census Bureau workers.

The leak came from a database belonging to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, which collects audit reports from government agencies and other organizations spending federal grants.

"Earlier this week, the Census Bureau experienced an attack to gain access to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse, which is housed on an externally facing IT system that contains non-confidential information," Census Bureau director John H. Thompson revealed in a blog post. "It appears the database was compromised through a configuration setting that allowed the attacker to gain access to the four files posted to the hacker's site."

"Within 90 minutes of learning of the breach, we made the system inaccessible. It will remain offline until we can complete our thorough investigation and take steps to ensure the systems integrity in the future," read the blog post.

The cyberattack was allegedly in protest of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, two pending trade agreements that have been widely criticized. The hackers from Anonymous Operations posted a link on Twitter leading to four files.

Read more -here-