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1 MILLION accounts leaked in megahack on banks, websites

On my (shell) command, unleash hell!

Hacker collective Team GhostShell leaked a cache of more than one million user account records from 100 websites over the weekend.

The group, which is affiliated with hacktivists Anonymous, claimed they broke into databases maintained by banks, US government agencies and consultancy firms to leak passwords and documents. Some of the pinched data includes credit histories from banks among other files, many of which were lifted from content management systems. Some of the breached databases each contained more than 30,000 records.

An analysis of the hacks by security biz Imperva reveals that most of the breaches were pulled off using SQL injection attacks - simply tricking the servers into handing over a bit more information than they should. "Looking at the data dumps reveals the use of the tool SQLmap, one of two main SQL injection tools typically deployed by hackers," the company's researchers explained in a blog post.

Team GhostShell said the online leaks, which are part of its Project Hellfire campaign, were made in protest against banks and in revenge for the rounding up of hacktivists by cops and government agents.

The team said it worked with other hacking crews, MidasBank and OphiusLab, on the attacks - and claims to have accessed a Chinese technology vendor’s mainframe, a US stock exchange and the Department of Homeland Security. It plans to offer access to these compromised systems to hackers who have the chops to handle them.

In a statement, the group threatened to carry out further attacks, leak more sensitive data and generally unleash hell.

“All aboard the Smoke & Flames Train, Last stop, Hell," Team GhostShell wrote. "Two more projects are still scheduled for this fall and winter. It's only the beginning."

Team GhostShell is lead by self-proclaimed black hat hacker DeadMellox. ®

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