'Anonymous' nabs 90,000 credit cards for Christmas

Hacker group promises to use leaked information to donate to those in need

In a Christmas-inspired interpretation of charity, a group of "Anonymous" hackers claimed to have stolen 200 GB of credit card data from Stratfor, a US-based think tank, in order to use credit cards on file to donate to the underprivileged. 

The hackers claimed claimed that they accessed 90,000 credit card numbers and would make over a $1 million in donations with the results. Several Anonymous-related Twitter handles started calling the holiday hacking to create donations #OpRobinHood.

This sect of Anonymous, which gained worldwide notoriety during the start of the Occupy Wall Street movement and several hacks on Internet giants like MasterCard, PayPal and Visa, said it was able to get credit card details because Stratfor didn't encrypt them.

Stratfor sent out an email to its members over the weekend explaining the hack and immediately shut down its servers -- which were still down Monday morning.

Statfor's CEO, George Friedman explained why the company server and website was shutdown over the holiday weekend but offered little information as to what information or risk its users were dealing with since the "investigation is active and ongoing."

Following the hack, a YouTube video, wishing everyone a "Merry LulzXMas" was posted on the site and a list of companies that work with Statfor was posted online for people to see and share.

Anonymous warned via a Twitter account that it has "enough targets lined up to extend the fun fun fun of LulzXmas through the entire next week."

The bout of hacks that Anonymous has made over the last year has raised consumer awareness that their private information isn't even safe in the hands of credit card or security companies and has forces many privacy experts to up their Internet protection measures.