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

A group of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers” says it breached nan Heritage Foundation earlier this month, releasing 2 gigabytes of nan right-wing deliberation tank’s soul data connected Tuesday. On its Telegram channel, nan hacktivist corporate SiegedSec — which has antecedently claimed work for hacking NATO’s machine systems — said nan Heritage hack was portion of its #OpTransRights campaign, which besides targeted nan far-right media outlet Real America’s Voice and nan Hillsong megachurch. The group besides cited their objections to Project 2025, nan 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 group of criminal trolls trying to get attention.”

“An organized group 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 article comments and nan IP reside of nan commenter. No Heritage systems were breached astatine immoderate time, and each Heritage databases and websites stay secure, including Project 2025. The information astatine rumor has been taken down, and further information steps person since been taken arsenic a precaution.”

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

SiegedSec has released chat logs of a speech 1 of its members claimed to person pinch Howell connected Signal. The chat logs show a personification who claims to beryllium Howell asking a SiegedSec personnel why nan group hacked nan Heritage Foundation and threatening to expose nan hackers. 

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

The messages besides show Howell claiming to beryllium “tied up pinch nan fbi issuing a 2702 order” connected SiegedSec’s societal media. SiegedSec has so disbanded, a determination its members property to their “own intelligence health, nan accent of wide publicity, and to debar nan oculus of nan 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 nan server was named ‘first-heritage-foundation’. Clearly, Heritage was genuinely hacked.”

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

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

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

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

Broadly speaking, its recommendations impact expanding statesmanlike power, purging national agencies of profession employees, and replacing them pinch Trump loyalists. The instruction calls for dismantling full national departments — including nan departments of Commerce, Education, and Homeland Security, nan second of which would beryllium replaced pinch a caller agency that is much utmost successful its ngo and little taxable to oversight. Project 2025 besides urges Trump to reverse nan Food and Drug Administration’s support of abortion 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 nan Federal Communications Commission — written by Brendan Carr, nan agency’s caput nether Trump — calls for nan imposition of “transparency rules connected Big Tech” and an overhaul of Section 230 of nan Communications Decency Act, nan rule that states that “interactive machine services” can’t beryllium treated arsenic nan publishers aliases speakers of third-party contented published connected their platforms. Carr claims that Section 230 allows tech companies to “censor protected speech,” echoing claims that awesome societal media companies suppress right-wing viewpoints.

Trump precocious attempted to region himself from Project 2025, claiming he has “no idea” who is down nan scheme — moreover though a CNN analysis recovered that much than 140 erstwhile members of his management were progressive successful drafting nan mandate.