Description

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, recently fell victim to a significant cyberattack orchestrated by the hacktivist group SiegedSec. Claiming responsibility for the breach, SiegedSec, self-identified as "gay furry hackers," infiltrated the Foundation's servers and accessed sensitive data, including internal documents related to a controversial initiative known as "Project 2025." This initiative allegedly outlines a series of potential far-right policy changes anticipated under a hypothetical second term of former President Donald Trump, touching upon issues like abortion, family structure, diversity, equality, and immigration. The cyberattack, which occurred on July 2nd, resulted in the release of over 2 gigabytes of data on July 9th. This data dump included emails, usernames, passwords of both Heritage Foundation members and contributors, and even US government email addresses. Despite the Foundation's denial of a system breach, SiegedSec claims to have acquired over 200 gigabytes of data, with only a fraction released thus far. The motives behind SiegedSec's actions appear rooted in their campaign dubbed "OpTransRights," aimed at challenging governmental policies perceived as anti-transgender and anti-abortion. The group targeted the Heritage Foundation due to its association with Project 2025, reflecting their ideological opposition to the Foundation's conservative agenda. In response to the incident, Heritage Foundation spokespersons dismissed claims of a breach, attributing the incident to what they termed as baseless allegations propagated by malicious actors. Amidst the fallout from the cyberattack, SiegedSec announced its retirement from hacktivism, citing concerns over potential legal repercussions and a desire to move on from their activist activities. This development marks a conclusion to their brief but impactful presence within the cybersecurity landscape, characterized by targeted actions against entities they viewed as adversarial to LGBTQ+ rights and other progressive causes.