Anonymous have just released data online belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA). The group justified the hack as "for the LulZ."

While most of the time the group takes up causes and carries out DDoS attacks, defaces websites, or breaches databases on behalf of these causes, this operation clearly crossed the line into criminality, the group having nothing to prove.

The data, leaked on JustPaste.it, includes the database schema of the ESA website (esa.int), along with details about registered users, collaborators, and subscribers.

The group claims to have targeted the due.esrin.esa.int, exploration.esa.int, and sci.esa.int domains. There was no evidence that these websites themselves were defaced. The Anonymous hackers seem to have only breached the database.

Technical details reveal that ESA was using a Linux Debian, Apache, PHP & MySQL for one server, and a mixture of ColdFusion and Oracle for another.

Infosec experts have many times explained that most defacements are opportunistic incidents, where hackers find a hole in a server's defenses, carry out the hack, and then justify it later.

This seems to be one of those cases. Prior to this event, there was no evidence online with Anonymous ever having something against the European Space Agency.

Since the data about ESA subscribers contained password details in cleartext, we won't link it in this article. A censored screenshot is embedded below.