Hacker Group Says Charity Not Goal of Stratfor Attack

The hacking network Anonymous now says exposing global security think tank Stratfor’s e-mail correspondence—not using its high-powered clients’ money to benefit charities—was the primary motive for last week’s cyber-attack on the firm, writes The New York Times.

Anonymous initially announced it would use financial data obtained from Stratfor’s customer rolls to donate $1-million to charities. Clients said their credit-card numbers were used for gifts to aid groups such as the American Red Cross and CARE.

But Barrett Brown, an Anonymous spokesman, posted a statement online Monday saying the goal of the hack was to access the think tank’s e-mail records and publicize “correspondence with untold thousands of contacts who have spoken to Stratfor’s employees off the record over more than a decade.”

The recipient charities have promised to refund fraudulent donations but could end up with costs of their own due to charge-back fees and the administrative burden of tracking and repaying the phony gifts, the Financial Times reports.