Heritage Foundation insists it was not hacked by ‘gay furries’

A radical of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers” says it breached the Heritage Foundation earlier this month, releasing 2 gigabytes of the right-wing deliberation tank’s interior data connected Tuesday. On its Telegram channel, the hacktivist corporate SiegedSec — which has antecedently claimed work for hacking NATO’s machine systems — said the Heritage hack was portion of its #OpTransRights campaign, which besides targeted the far-right media outlet Real America’s Voice and the Hillsong megachurch. The radical besides cited their objections to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s argumentation connection for a 2nd word for erstwhile President Donald Trump, arsenic a motivating factor.

In an email to The Verge, Heritage Foundation spokesperson Noah Weinrich denied that Heritage had been hacked, calling it a “false communicative and an exaggeration by a radical of transgression trolls trying to get attention.”

“An organized radical stumbled upon a two-year-old archive of The Daily Signal website that was disposable connected a public-facing website owned by a contractor,” Weinrich said successful an emailed statement. “The accusation obtained was constricted to usernames, names, email addresses, and incomplete password accusation of some Heritage and non-Heritage contented contributors, arsenic good arsenic nonfiction comments and the IP code of the commenter. No Heritage systems were breached astatine immoderate time, and each Heritage databases and websites stay secure, including Project 2025. The information astatine contented has been taken down, and further information steps person since been taken arsenic a precaution.”

The Heritage Foundation claims the alleged hack was an exaggeration for attention, but successful the meantime, Mike Howell, the enforcement manager of the foundation’s Oversight Project, has triumphantly taken recognition for disbanding “the Gay Furry Hackers.”

SiegedSec has released chat logs of a speech 1 of its members claimed to person with Howell connected Signal. The chat logs amusement a idiosyncratic who claims to beryllium Howell asking a SiegedSec subordinate wherefore the radical hacked the Heritage Foundation and threatening to exposure the hackers. 

Weinrich did not remark connected the alleged messages betwixt Howell and SiegedSec.

The messages besides amusement Howell claiming to beryllium “tied up with the fbi issuing a 2702 order” connected SiegedSec’s societal media. SiegedSec has so disbanded, a determination its members property to their “own intelligence health, the accent of wide publicity, and to debar the oculus of the FBI.”

A SiegedSec typical who goes by vio told The Verge they “completely expected” Heritage to contradict that it had been hacked. “Many companies effort denial to prevention face,” vio said. “The server we hacked was linked to The Daily Signal, and the server was named ‘first-heritage-foundation’. Clearly, Heritage was genuinely hacked.”

“Mike’s threats and insults showed choler that confirmed what Heritage denied,” vio said.

In a connection connected Telegram, SiegedSec said the extremity of the hack was to gully attraction to — and combat — the Heritage Foundation’s anti-LGBT and anti-abortion argumentation proposals.

“The Heritage Foundation is simply a blimpish deliberation vessel successful America, among the astir influential nationalist argumentation organizations,” 1 SiegedSec subordinate wrote connected Telegram. “This enactment is liable for starring Project 2025, an authoritarian Christian nationalist program to betterment the United States government.” The hacked data, which was reviewed by CyberScoop, includes Heritage Foundation blogs and worldly related to The Daily Signal, a quality website affiliated with the organization. 

Heritage published Project 2025, its sweeping recommendations for a 2nd Trump term, successful April 2023, with a “broad coalition” of much than 100 different blimpish organizations. The 900-plus-page “mandate for leadership” touches connected virtually each assemblage of the enforcement branch, from the White House to the bevy of national agencies nether the president’s control.

Broadly speaking, its recommendations impact expanding statesmanlike power, purging national agencies of vocation employees, and replacing them with Trump loyalists. The mandate calls for dismantling full national departments — including the departments of Commerce, Education, and Homeland Security, the second of which would beryllium replaced with a caller bureau that is much utmost successful its ngo and little taxable to oversight. Project 2025 besides urges Trump to reverse the Food and Drug Administration’s support of termination pills, destruct policies that beforehand “abortion arsenic wellness care,” outlaw pornography, and unopen down “telecommunications and exertion firms that facilitate its spread.” 

The mandate’s section connected the Federal Communications Commission — written by Brendan Carr, the agency’s caput nether Trump — calls for the imposition of “transparency rules connected Big Tech” and an overhaul of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the instrumentality that states that “interactive machine services” can’t beryllium treated arsenic the publishers oregon speakers of third-party contented published connected their platforms. Carr claims that Section 230 allows tech companies to “censor protected speech,” echoing claims that large societal media companies suppress right-wing viewpoints.

Trump precocious attempted to region himself from Project 2025, claiming helium has “no idea” who is down the program — adjacent though a CNN analysis recovered that much than 140 erstwhile members of his medication were progressive successful drafting the mandate.