“Gay furry hackers” leak revealing data from major anti-LGBTQ+ Republican think tank

Yesterday, a group of “gay furry hackers” known as SiegedSec released 200 gigabytes of leaked data from the Heritage Foundation on their Telegram, a group texting application.

“This breach can help shine light on who exactly is supporting Heritage, and also encourage people to fight against them even more than before,” said a member of the group known as “vio” to LGBTQ Nation.

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Gay furry hackers leak data of transphobic pastor & far-right news network

The group claims to have targeted numerous anti-LGBTQ+ political entities over the last year.

“I believe it’s also worth noting, this could help show the amount of support Heritage has that’s provided by malicious users or bots from China,” she said while linking to a thread on X by journalist Jackie Singh, which analyzes the leak’s data.

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I am reviewing this alleged hack of The Heritage Foundation.

I have identified very embarrassing data within this dataset. Why so many Chinese IP addresses? 🤔 https://t.co/M2MXK3g4mA

— Jackie Singh (@HackingButLegal) July 10, 2024

The leak resulted from a string of hacks carried out by the group’s “#OpTransRights,” which targets groups opposed to trans civil rights. The Heritage Foundation in particular was targeted for its creation of Project 2025, a plan to install ultraconservative policies if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Project 2025’s desired policies include strong restrictions on transgender care and denying any legal recognition of trans people’s gender identities. 

LGBTQ Nation obtained access to the leaked data. It contains information from between 2007 and 2022, and it focuses primarily around the Heritage Foundation’s news wing, The Daily Signal. The data includes information on commenters’ email and IP addresses, along with information regarding those who had articles posted on the site.

The group also claims that a majority of data from the leak is “mostly useless” information that it will not be releasing.

“The most interesting of the breach is the user data, such as email address, full name, username, and password. it also contains information such as [the] name and IP address of commenters. This user data has many people of interest, for example, House Representatives, US govt employees, and the Heritage president,” said vio.

LGBTQ Nation was able to obtain access to this data and was able to confirm the presence of politicians, government employees, and additionally the Heritage Foundation president, Kevin Roberts within the data.

SiegedSec, as well as vio, had their X accounts taken down yesterday after announcing the leak on their socials media accounts.

The Heritage Foundation was hacked previously in April, and the organization had to shut down its servers following an attack from “nation-state hackers.” According to The Intercept, SiegedSec had targeted the Heritage Foundation back in June, something that vio denied participation in.

SiegedSec has targeted other groups and individuals earlier this year as part of #OpTransRights, including the ultraconservative outlet Real America’s Voice and a Minnesota church pastor who was accused of transphobia.

In their Telegram post, the group announced that there is “an important announcement” coming soon. While vio declined to comment on the specifics, she said that “the announcement we have coming soon will affect SiegedSec’s future as a group.”

LGBTQ Nation reached out to The Heritage Foundation for comment, however no response was received at the time of publication. This article will be updated if the organization does respond.

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