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Noah Weinrich, a representative from right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, told The Verge on Friday, July 12, that SiegedSec – self-described as a group of “gay furry hackers” – were not in fact hackers.
On Tuesday, SiegedSec said it unearthed an archive owned by The Heritage Foundation, stealing over two gigabytes of incriminating data, according to CyberScoop.
Weinrich clarified the situation, stating the group simply “stumbled upon a two-year-old archive of The Daily Signal website.”
“The information obtained was limited to usernames, names, email addresses, and incomplete password information of both Heritage and non-Heritage content contributors, as well as article comments and the IP address of the commenter,” Weinrich added.
He also adamantly said that the Heritage systems were not all breached by the event, saying it’s a “false narrative and an exaggeration by a group of criminal trolls trying to get attention.”
The hacking collective, for its part, previously said the data comprised blogs from the foundation, information from their affiliated media site The Daily Signal, and contact details of associated people.
SiegedSec later released the data on their now-deleted X account to combat the foundation’s Project 2025, a set of policy proposals designed to “lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right.” These policies are reportedly slated for implementation if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election.
“Vio,” a spokesperson of SiegedSec, told CyberScoop the group acquired and released the data to give “transparency to the public regarding who exactly is supporting Heritage.” They further explained that this could affect the organization’s reputation, pushing away “users in positions of power.”
This isn’t the first instance of Heritage suffering a cyberattack this year. As reported by Politico in April, the think tank announced it had “shut down its network to prevent any further malicious activity” following a cyberattack that transpired at the time.
After the data breach on Tuesday, The Daily Dot covered SiegSec’s released chatlogs with one of the Heritage Foundation’s executives, Mike Howell.
“We want to make a message and shine light on who exactly supports the Heritage Foundation. We don’t want anymore than that, not money and not fame. We’re strongly against Project 2025 and everything the heritage foundation stands for,” the group told the executive.
Howell responded with confusion about the group’s rationale, and as the conversation progressed, it grew heated from the executive side.
“Ok, listen to me closely,” the executive said. “We are in the process of identifying and putting members of your group. Reputations and lives will be destroyed. Closeted Furries will be presented to the world for the degenerate perverts they are.”
He then concluded the conversation with a threat: “You cannot hide. Your means are minuscule compared to mine. You can either turn yourself in or you can cooperate.”
After the debacle, SiegedSec announced their plans to disband to avoid the FBI, although it had nothing to do with their clash with Howell.
Howell, upon learning of the news, celebrated on X, claiming, “I have forced the Gay Furry Hackers to DISBAND.”
Weinrich, meanwhile, did not comment on the alleged exchange between Howell and SiegedSec. – Rav Ayag/Rappler.com
Rav Ayag is a Tech and Features intern at Rappler. He is an incoming senior at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Bachelor of Fine Arts Creative Writing program.
This story was vetted by a reporter and an editor.
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