Anonymous cocks a snook at FBI with leak of secret policeman's call

Online hacker collective Anonymous has upped the ante in its cat-and-mouse game with law enforcers, by posting a recording online of a conversation between officials from the US and UK, where they discuss tactics to tackle the group.

Twitter accounts related to the hacktivist group were used to publicise the leak, claiming it had been obtained as a result of breaching Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) computer systems.

The #FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now. #OpInfiltration

— AnonymousIRC (@AnonymousIRC) February 3, 2012

Reuters has subsquently reported the FBI confirmed that the leak was a genuine recording of its officers and counterparts from Scotland Yard.

It looks from the information available that one of the police investigators must have had their email account compromised, suggested Graham Cluley, a security spokesman for Sophos.

“The assumption has to be that an Anonymous hacker had access to one of the recipients' email accounts, and thus had secret access to the confidential call,” he said.

In the leaked conversation, the participants discuss efforts on both sides of the Atlantic to combat Anonymous, including details of the arrest of several supposed members of Anonymous.

Several of those suspects are indeed named during the conversation, but that part of the audio track has been bleeped out.

The latest incident caps a busy few days for Anonymous.

It has been linked with defacement attacks on the Greek ministry of justice, publishing names and addresses of hundreds of police officers in Texas and attacking Brazilian bank web sites.