A website that is believed to have originated in Russia has
published private financial information for several well-known American public
figures and celebrities. Sarah Palin, Beyonce, Michelle Obama, Beyoncé, Mel
Gibson, Britney Spears, Donald Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joe Biden, Hillary
Clinton, Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashian were among those targeted.
In some cases, the information was rather sensitive. What
appears to be Michelle Obama’s credit report was posted with a message
reading “Blame your husband, we still love you, Michelle.” Other victims of the
fraud had their alleged social security numbers revealed, as well as their
addresses and phone numbers. Some of the website’s “secret files” included
information like credit card bills and information on car payments for stars.
But the accuracy of these reports still has to be verified.
At least some of them have been found to be false, such as the phone number for
Joe Biden that turned out to be the phone number for a local business in
Delaware.
According to local police, the FBI had been investigating
the site, exposed.su, for some time before the attack. About 200,000 people
visited the site on the night of March 11th, after a link to it was
posted via Twitter reading, “Hello world, we are exposed. Our goal is to show
you all that this is only one of a few tricks up our sleeve.”
How the site got ahold of the information remains a mystery,
but it certainly has many people nervous about how secure their information is
on the digital front. Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said the attack
was “creepy.”
“It’s a creepy thing to do,” he said. “People get mad at us,
go on the internet and try to find information about us and post it all on one
site.”
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