Heritage Foundation hack explained.

Who Are The 'Gay Furries' That Hacked The Heritage Foundation? The Hacktivist Group 'SiegedSec' And The Leaks Explained

In one of the stranger stories so far this year, a group of hackers who call themselves gay furries has released archival data from a site operated by the conservative American think tank, the Heritage Foundation, according to a post made by the group on their encrypted Telegram channel SiegedSecurity.


The group conducted the hack as part of their informal "OpTransRights" campaign in which they target government websites intending to disrupt efforts to enact or enforce anti-trans and anti-abortion laws. The Heritage Foundation is perhaps best known for its involvement in creating the controversial Trump-backed Project 2025 campaign.

Here's everything we know about the hacking attempt, the leaks and the fallout that followed.

What Is SiegedSec, And Why Did They Hack The Heritage Foundation?

SiegedSec is a hacktivist collective that has long been engaged in what they call "Operation Trans Rights," with the Heritage Foundation's anti-trans and anti-abortion stance drawing the attention of the self-described "Gay Furry Hacker" group.

According to correspondence between SiegedSec and Cyberscoop, the Heritage Foundation hack was an attempt to provide "transparency to the public regarding who exactly is supporting" the conservative group.

Earlier this week, the group released internet data about the Heritage Foundation, which, according to "vio," includes "full names, email addresses, passwords and usernames" of individuals linked to the nonprofit. The data was reportedly hosted on the Daily Signal, Heritage’s news site.

UWU SiegedSec final hack~ StagedSed https://t.me/SiegedSecurity email: youranomwolf@riseup.net over the past 7 days, we have released a hack every day, from NATO to Israel, we attacked many. we have one more gift for you all, its one minute till midnight so i'll start the show we hacked The Heritage Foundation :3 (holy moly!!!) The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank in America, among the most influential public policy organizations. this organization is responsible for leading Project 2025, an authoritarian Christian nationalist plan to reform the United States government. Project 2025 threatens the rights of abortion healthcare and LGBTQ communities in particular, so of course, we won't stand for that! we have gained access to The Heritage Foundation's database, with user data, logs, and other juicy info :D we also accessed 200GB+ of other, mostly useless, files in their server. these useless files wont be leaked. new new i wonder what would happen if we leaked the passwords, email addresses, and full names of every user :3 every US government employee, even the Heritage president Kevin Roberts. be gay do crine- thank you to verty for greatly helping with this hack! dear heritage foundation, get in touch with us! we will make fun of you endlessly : Love, siegodsoc <3 a0pTransRights thank you everyone who has supported us. we have an important announcement coming soon. The P Heritage Foundation over the past 7 days, we have released a hack every day, from NATO to Israel, we attacked many. we have one more gift for you all, its one minute till midnight so i'll start the show~ we hacked The Heritage Foundation :3 (holy moly!!!) The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank in America, among the most influential public policy organizations. this organization is responsible for leading Project 2025, an authoritarian Christian nationalist plan to reform the United States government. Project 2025 threatens the rights of abortion healthcare and LGBTQ+ communities in particular. so of course, we won't stand for that! ^_^ we have gained access to The Heritage Foundation's database, with user data, logs, and other juicy info :D we also accessed 200GB+ of other, mostly useless, files in their server. these useless files wont be leaked. A 3 mew mew i wonder what would happen if we leaked the passwords, email addresses, and full names of every user :3 every US government employee, even the Heritage president Kevin Roberts. be gay do crime~ LEAK: https://mega.nz/file/ cD8mHRjD#YGxykiDiQMdvMz1 SneiwPL6zTDBhs8rTxtUwQ9IEujM thank you to verty for greatly helping with this hack! dear heritage foundation, get in touch with us! we will make fun of you endlessly :3 youranonwolf@riseup.net signal: cybercrimecat.69 love, gay furry hackers <3 #OpTransRights thank you everyone who has supported us. we have an important announcement coming soon. 8.7K 10:00 °


How Did The Heritage Foundation React To the Hack And What Information Was Compromised?

According to SiegedSec, their hack of the Daily Signal produced username and email information relevant to the Heritage Foundation, but Mike Howell, a columnist at the Daily Signal, pushed back on that narrative.

The journalist was one of the first to reach out to the hacker group, with SiegedSec releasing a chat log showing the writer calling the group rude names.

KITTY DISK @kittydisks. Follow X furries hacked the heritage foundation (propelling project 2025) which caused the executive director to reach out and the chat logs are VILE Mike Howell: Would you like to meet virtually or send an emissary to meet in person vio: i would like to be left alone without my rights being threatened. Mike Howell: Are you aware that you won't be able to wear a furry tiger costume when you're getting pounded in the a in the federal prison I put you in next year? vio: such unprofessional language from an executive director, would you mind if i shared this? :3 Mike Howell: Please share widely. I hope the word spreads as fast as the STDS do in your degenerate furry community.


According to the Heritage Foundation's statement to Newsweek, the think tank was not actually "hacked." Instead, it said that the would-be hackers accessed a two-year-old outdated archive of The Daily Signal.

"The Heritage Foundation was not hacked. An organized group stumbled upon a two-year-old archive of The Daily Signal website that was available on a public-facing website owned by a contractor. 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. No Heritage systems were breached at any time, and all Heritage databases and websites remain secure, including Project 2025. The data at issue has been taken down, and additional security steps have since been taken as a precaution."

However, other tech whizzes took a look at the information released by SiegedSec and drew their own conclusions.

For instance, X user @HackingButLegal posted a thread analyzing some of the data leaked by SeigedSec, concluding that several comments on the Heritage Foundation's website originated from Asian countries.

Jackie Singh @HackingButLegal • 22h Dataset was a little dirty and a hassle to clean up. Here are the 60K extracted IPs from the WP Comments table: defuse.ca/b/ PTrmvlbs #HeritageFoundation ge grep -oE '\b([0-9]{1,3}\.){3}[0-9]{1 5] 12[0-4][0-9] | [01]?[0-9][0-9]?)\.){3} 0-9]?)$/!d' > output.txt 6 1785 1.1K III 216K Jackie Singh @HackingButLegal Subscribe Sample geolocations from the first 100 IPs (these are sorted 'low to high', and many Asia-based netblocks start with the number 1) Checking... #: 26/100 74 to go IP Address Reverse DNS Country Region • City Zip Code Timezone ISP 1-172-10-38.dynamic- Penghu | Penghu 1.172.10.38 Taiwan Asia/Taipei Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. ip.hinet.net County County 1-172-15-59.dynamic- Penghu 1.172.15.59 Taiwan ip.hinet.net County | Penghu County Asia/Taipei Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd. 1.186.48.26 1.186.48.26 India Karnataka 1.207.26.87 1.207.26.87 China Guizhou 1.23.84.39 1.23.84.39 India West Bengal Kolkata Bengaluru 560056 Asia/Kolkata Guiyang 550000 Asia/Shanghai 700014 Asia/Kolkata DVOIS Chinanet Tikona Infinet Ltd. South 1.234.27.239 1.234.27.239 Seoul Seocho-gu 066 Asia/Seoul SK Broadband Co Ltd Korea 1.24.119.19 1.24.119.19 China Fujian Zhangzhou Asia/Shanghai China Unicom Neimeng Province Network South 1.251.19.135 1.251.19.135 Daegu Seo-gu 418 Asia/Seoul SK Broadband Co Ltd Korea 1.26.102.189 1.26.102.189 China Fujian Zhangzhou Asia/Shanghai China Unicom Neimeng Province Network 1.53.161.195 1.53.161.195 Vietnam Ho Chi Minh | Quan Binh Thanh 1.55.89.216 1.55.89.216 Vietnam Hanoi Hanoi 1.55.95.220 1.55.95.220 Vietnam Hanoi Hanoi 1.59.151.107 1.59.151.107 China Heilongjiang Harbin 1.61.122.87 1.61.122.87 China Heilongjiang Harbin 150000 Asia/Shanghai 1.62.83.6 1.62.83.6 China Heilongjiang Harbin 150000 Asia/Shanghai Asia/Ho Chi Minh FPT Telecom Company Asia/Bangkok Asia/Bangkok 150000 Asia/Shanghai FPT Telecom Company China Unicom Heilongjiang Province Network China Unicom Heilongjiang Province Network China Unicom Heilongjiang Province Network FPT Telecom Company 1-64-176- 1.64.176.95 Hong Kong Eastern 095.static.netvigator.com Heng Fa Chuen Asia/Hong_Kong PCCW IMS Limited 1-64-55- 1.64.55.226 Hong Kong Eastern 226.static.netvigator.com Metropole Building 96521 Asia/Hong_Kong PCCW IMS Limited 12:03 PM ⚫ Jul 10, 2024 250K Views Jackie Singh @HackingButLegal Here's an example of the fun we can have here: Subscribe Match suspicious comments to suspicious IP addresses. Here we have "Clint" who asks, "I am not sure who told you that 'Space-based interceptors present the best option for a boost-phase missile defense.' Can you point me to a technical study? This Air Force (ex-AF) officer says the opposite is true: that space based missile defense is not feasible [links] So I am confused it seems space based missile defense is not the most sensible thing to do. If you have any other information to share on this issue that would be good. Thanks." "Clint" made this particular comment from an IP address originating from Kathmandu, Nepal. e_i@yahoo.com', whois: status: ALLOCATED II '110. ' whois.apnic.net 2008-11 IANA sure who told you that & changed: missile defense.&quot; Force (ex-AF) officer say ible: \n <a href="http: .thespacereview.com/artic href="http://www.missile llow">http://www.missilet seems space based missile r information to share on 0, 0), 12:21 PM ⚫ Jul 10, 2024 355.1K Views source: #whois.apnic.net % [whois.apnic.net] % Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html % Information related to '110.34.4.0 110.34.4.255' % Abuse contact for '110.34.4.0 110.34.4.255' is 'abuse@subisu.net.np' inetnum: netname: descr: country: admin-c: tech-c: abuse-c: status: mnt-by: mnt-irt: last-modified: source: irt: address: address: address: e-mail: abuse-mailbox: 110.34.4.0 110.34.4.255 SUBISU Corporate_Pool17 SUBISU Corporate_Pool17 NP ATC1-AP SA1-NP AS2579-AP ASSIGNED NON-PORTABLE MAINT-NP-SUBISU IRT-SUBISUCABLENET-NP-NP 2021-02-02T16:05:26Z APNIC IRT-SUBISUCABLENET-NP-NP PO Box: 6626, Baluwatar Kathmandu Nepal engg@subisu.net.np abuse@subisu.net.np



For the full history of the Heritage Foundation Gay Furry Hack, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.



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