IHS Jane’s has responded to the series of articles regarding the data leak executed by an Iranian hacker group known as Parastoo, we present this update. The hacker group leaked information belonging to the security intelligence and analysis group and made a number of significant threats and claims.  An email that was received from Ed Mattix, Vice President of Corporate Communications gives a description of the stolen information:

Based on our investigation to date, the stolen information on CBRN is content from books, magazines and websites previously published in the public domain as part of normal IHS publishing activities. Since it is previously published in the public domain, there is nothing confidential or privileged contained in the information.

Thank you.

Ed Mattix
Vice President-Corporate Communications

To be clear, the CBRN information that was leaked to the web largely appears to be information, reports and analysis that are a part of IHS Jane’s business model. There really is no reason to think that something truly confidential or privileged, (such as a government classified document) would be among the information leaks, so the statement about classified and privileged information can be expected to be reinforced. This does not change the sensitive and strategic nature of the information however and that is something of note.

Parastoo, the hacker group behind this intrusion claims to have also stolen more than 450,000 credit card records and business histories from IHS’s largest clients, dating back several years. They reportedly also hold troves of information on government, military and contractors – much of it allegedly sensitive and even personal information. They also published what they say is IHS’ private RSA key. In Parastoo’s statement, the exploits described did not encounter much in the way of security and that the operation took place over six months. The security claims, including the report that the stolen information is on order of 14TB of data altogether, they are pretty lofty. There is reason to doubt that security could have conceivably been that lacking, and there are certainly a lot of claims, let alone the threats.

The one thing that we do know is that a large amount of information is out there that was not intended to be. Rest assured that a response plan to this incident has probably been in motion for some time, an interesting topic alluded to in another of our quality articles. In the meantime, if any of those hacker claims turn up in form of further releases or statements, it is something that people are keeping an eye on.  It is also of great interest that any further details remain as confidential as possible, and that is based on the type of information this company handles and that they deserve a chance to fully assess and remediate any damage done.   Meanwhile, Parastoo seems to have focused their attention to #OpsIsrael and taking credit for the mystery JFK drone incident.  They have promised a followup video and possibly another drone operation, though there has been little to substantiate it.  #OpsIsrael is a multi-hacker threat operation aimed to take Israeli websites down early next month.