Hackers claim attack on gov't sites

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - The city of Mobile said its computers were hacked Thursday by an infamous group, which identifies itself as "Anonymous."

The city was warned of the cyber attacks, and actually had to shutdown its computers until Friday morning.

“Hackers are out there all the time trying to get into systems. But in this particular case, they hacked into the amnesty warrants list,” said Barbara Drummond with the City of Mobile.

Drummond said the amnesty warrants list was on a separate site and not part of the city server, where most of the personal information is kept.

Still, “Anonymous” claimed it acquired information like legal names, social security numbers, and even date of births.

“On their website, they said that they had this information, but they said that, 'We're not going to publish it.' They published about 150 names, and they redacted a lot of information,” Drummond said.

The group wrote it had no plans to use that information to do damage.

Instead, it is looking to send a message to the public.

“They are hacking city, county, government, police departments all over the country. And in Alabamans case, they said that they are doing it as a result, in protest of Alabamans immigration law,” Drummond.

“Anonymous” posted a news release online addressing Alabama’s immigration law.

The release states, “Careless policies in motion which will eventually affect citizens who have had their identity stolen and personal history tampered with."

Drummond said the city has never experienced hacking to this extreme.

She said the city is working to strengthen its cyber security before something worse happens.

“Lucky for Mobile that the city of mobile server had not been hacked because that's a lot of data there,” Drummond said.

Drummond said the warrant amnesty information had already been made public by the city.

She added that technicians are still trying to determine whether login information, which includes social security numbers, was compromised.