Anonymous: Hacker unleashes 17.8GB trove of data from a Turkish national police server

A hacker aligned with the Anonymous hacking collective has unleashed a trove of data reportedly containing sensitive contents of a Turkish national police database in order to "take action against corruption" in the nation's government. Now, the massive dataset, stolen from the Turkish General Directorate of Security (EGM), has been posted on peer-to-peer file sharing sites for the public to download freely and view.

The hacker, believed to be using the pseudonym ROR[RG], chose to release the police files via The Cthulhu website – which has hosted Anonymous-backed leaks in the past including, most notably, the contents of a serious hack against a major US police union earlier this year.

On The Cthulhu website, the host claims that ROR[RG] breached the Turkish database more than two years ago and posts links to the dataset. "The material was taken from the EGM which is the Turkey National Police," reads the statement. "The source has had persistent access to various parts of the Turkish government infrastructure for the past two years and in light of various government abuses in the past few months, has decided to take action against corruption by releasing this."

Based on photographs posted of the database, the data appears to be in .myd, .myi and .frm formats, which are frequently used in MySQL databases. The torrent file posted online is just under 2GB but when unzipped it expands to a massive 17.8GB worth of information.

Furthermore, ROR[RG] is the same hacker named as being responsible for the Adult Friend Finder breach in 2015 that resulted in the release of personal details of almost four millions users signed up to the service.

Anonymous vs Turkey

Anonymous has an established history with carrying out cyberattacks against Turkey. In 2015 the group, which is made up of a loose collection of hackers and hacktivists from across the globe, officially "declared war" on the country. In a video statement, the collective accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government of supporting the Islamic State (Isis), also known as Daesh.

"Turkey is supporting Daesh by buying oil from them, and hospitalising their fighters," said a masked spokesperson at the time. "We won't accept that Erdogan, the leader of Turkey, will help Isis any longer. If you don't stop supporting Isis, we will continue attacking your internet [...] stop this insanity now Turkey. Your fate is in your own hands."

Disclaimer: IBTimes.co.uk has not yet independently verified the contents of the leak.