Booz Allen Hamilton, a US government contractor with millions of dollars of US government contracts in civilian and defence projects became the latest victims of Anonymous, a loose group of activist hackers (or “hactivists”, as they are known). Anonymous released a statement saying they hacked into the network of the company, which has strong ties to the US Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, due to the high number of political scandals and civil rights issues surrounding the company.

The group managed to steal more than 90,000 military email addresses, passwords and other key data, which they put on The Pirate Bay file-sharing site. Anonymous claimed that the hack was surprisingly easy given the companies operations in 'homeland security', with Booz Allen Hamilton apparently surprised at how lax their digital security was.

The hack was carried out as part of the “Anti-Sec” campaign, recently launched in collaboration with other hackers, to “encourage a new policy of anti-disclosure among the computer and network security communities”. Anonymous say they are now planning to use the data from Booz Allen Hamilton to target other government agencies and contractors. Other recent attacks in the campaign include one on Monsanto, the agricultural biotechnology giant, to protest against the number of lawsuits the company has been filing against dairy farmers. Monsanto has admitted that Anonymous was responsible for the stealing employee data.

As part of its newly launched “Operation Green Rights”, the group aims to target companies that are harming the environment. It has released a video on You Tube to inform people about the campaign. Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Canadian Oil Sands, Imperial Oil and the Royal Bank of Scotland are named as being particularly responsible for environmental damage. Anonymous has said it aims to conduct attacks in the coming days to coincide with the protests against Tar Sands in Montana earlier this week, specifically plans to establish a transportation route for the shipment of oil refinery equipment from the US to the Alberta tar sands.

Anonymous calls for total freedom of the Internet and has targeted numerous government departments and companies. The group came to prominence due to its coordinated attacks on companies, including Mastercard and Amazon, that it said were not doing enough to defend the Wikileaks whistle-blowing website.