Hacking Of Salt Lake Police Website More Extensive Than First Thought

The hacking of the Salt Lake City Police Department's website by the shadowy activist group known as 'Anonymous' appears to be more extensive than was originally thought. SLCPD now says e-mail addresses of those who interacted with the site were accessed by the hackers, as were citizen complaints about neighborhood drug activity. Those complaints contained volumes of personal information, including home addresses, e-mails and other contact information.

Thursday Salt Lake police sent e-mails to those whose personal information may have been compromised, urging them to "immediately" change their e-mail passwords, "especially if you used the same password for the SLCPD website that you use at home or work." 

Police say they first noticed their site had been hacked around 2:30 Tuesday afternoon when "odd postings" began to appear. At the time they believed the hackers had only obtained obtained email information of registered users, but didn't realize other personal data had been accessed until Wednesday night.

Thursday, members of Anonymous took police to task for the limited information they released about the depth of their site's hacking. A comment posted at pastebin.com/ykXMzHXg said the SLCPD was being dishonest about how much private information the hackers had accessed. The post included redacted documents taken from the police department's site to prove the point.

In its original online statement, posted Tuesday at pastebin.com/tpit8bD3 the group said it was targeting SLCPD as a means of protesting new anti-graffiti legislation being considered in the Utah legislature. The legislation, proposed by West Valley Senator Karen Mayne, would prohibit anyone who intends on vandalizing an area with graffiti from possessing instruments, tools or devices that would enable them to carry out the act. Offenders would face a Class C misdemeanor under Utah law, which could be elevated to a felony depending the circumstances. Anonymous claims the pending bill "based on suspected intent" was akin to resolving an "inconvenience with a flamethrower" and would turn Salt Lake police into "footsoldiers."

The SLCPD website was taken offline Tuesday. It was still not up as of Thursday morning.

Salt Lake PD pointed out that the SB107 did not originate in Salt Lake, nor does its sponsor Karen Mayne reside in the city.

Mayne's only response to the hacking has been a simple statement saying the measure was being considered by the legislature.