FBI Investigates Lake County Sheriff’s Office Hack

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is currently analyzing the breach that affected the Lake County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, the Sun Sentinel informs.

As a result of the breach, the organization’s website was shut down for three days and all the employees were requested to change their passwords to avoid unfortunate situations.

For now, there aren’t many details made available regarding the law enforcement agency’s leads, but security experts believe that the incident could have a great impact in the way people see and trust the sheriff’s office.

While reports mention that around 3 gigabytes of documents, audio files and images were leaked, we know for a fact that at least 5 gigabytes of information have already made public by the hacktivists.

Also, sources have revealed that the total amount of data stolen by the hackers counts up to 40 gigabytes, the largest part comprising forensic software utilized by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.


Representatives from Orange County Sheriff’s Office have stated that this incident makes them focus their attention more on cyber security and the protection of their digital assets.

“It's one of those you don't want to learn the hard way. But the industry changes and we have to adapt to what it is,” James Garoutsos, director of information management services for Orange County Sheriff's Office, said.

This particular operation, part of “[Expletive] FBI Friday” was performed by AntiSec hackers as a form of protest against government corruption.

“More evidence that the illegitimate justice system protects their own, who get away with rampant corruption and theft, while the police apply unconstitutional profiling and pressure in their efforts to raise their arrest quotas and keep homeland security money rolling in,” the hackers wrote at the time.

The data dump comprised 13,000 files, which included everything from 911 calls, badge numbers, operation details, phone lists, intelligence bulletins from the FBI and much more.

Currently, more than one week after the incident, the data dump is still available. However, security solutions providers have flagged the website as being potentially harmful.

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