A Christmas scrooge stole credit card information from a Texas-based company Saturday, by hacking into its website. We’ve told you about a cyber threat that could impact the Iowa caucuses on January 3rd. Turns out, this latest internet breach could be affiliated with the same group of hackers, which released credit card information from Stratfor, a think-tank that concentrates on security issues, totaling losses of $1 million.
The group thought to be behind it is called Anonymous. That’s the same one responsible for threats made against the upcoming Iowa caucuses. How the group could hamper the process is unknown. University of Iowa professor, Douglas Jones, has two theories.
He says the hackers could leave a calling card by hacking into the caucus reporting system. “The example I’ve used before is, if they make Spongebob Squarepants win the caucuses,” said Jones.
There’s another more sinister option. “If they decided they were just going to boost Michelle Bachmann by 20 points, how would we know until a week or two later when it’s too late?” he said. Either way, republican leaders plan to step-up security at the caucuses by using paper ballots as a backup and Jones says, while it’s worrisome, the hacking threat could serve a larger purpose.
Full Article: Suspected hackers could target caucuses – WQAD.