PBS Website Hacked by Anonymous, Passwords Dumped

Anonymous hackers claim to have breached the website of the Public Broadcasting Service (pbs.org), leaking large amounts of sensitive information from its databases.

“PBS is just another example of mainstream media, feeding lies to the public. Therefore PBS could very well be a target of Anonymous,” the hackers wrote on the Anonymous Wiki Twitter account.

“Wouldn't attacking PBS be like attacking Fox? Their news sources are unreliable and irrelevant to the population,” they explained.

One of the dump files, published on Pastebin, contains around 300 usernames and password hashes that can allegedly be used to access the site’s database.

Another post holds close to 200 record sets that represent “stations and password.” It’s uncertain at this time what the passwords access, but the file also contains TV station names, website URLs, email addresses, physical addresses and contact details.

A number of 1,600 usernames, clear-text passwords and email addresses that belong to the members of the press were also leaked.

A separate file shows the usernames, names, email addresses and password hashes of website administrators, totaling a number of 38 records, and another one, entitled “logins” holds 250 names, usernames, email addresses and passwords.

We couldn’t verify the legitimacy of the leak, but we’re awaiting comment from PBS representatives on the matter.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the hackers’ claims were true, mainly because this is not the first time when the site is breached.

Back in 2011, the site was hacked two times. The first time it was hacked by LulzSec, whose members published a fake article on the website about Tupac and Notorious Big being alive and living in New Zealand.

The second breach was performed by LulzSec’s enemies who managed to leak the site’s database.

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