Hacker group Anonymous steals user names and passwords in cyber attack on Apple

Hacker group Anonymous claims to have stolen 25 internal user names and passwords from Apple in the latest of a series of attacks on government and corporate websites around the world.

In a Twitter post, the group said: Not being so serious, but well: #Apple could be target, too. But don't worry, we are busy elsewhere. #AntiSec.

The data, posted on file-sharing website pastebin, was taken from a server used by Apple for online surveys, but included only internal user names and passwords including admin and root.

Although the breach involves a relatively small amount of data compared to attacks on other companies, it underlies the potential for other attacks by Anonymous, according to the New York Times.

Apple could not be reached for comment to confirm whether the information was stolen from the company, the New York Times said.

The Twitter post indicates the Apple breach is part of a campaign by hackers, called Anti Security or AntiSec, to steal and leak classified government and company information to expose security flaws.

The campaign was announced in June by Lulz Security (Lulzsec), a hacker group that announced a week later it was disbanding after attacking a number of sites in the past two months, including the US Senate, the US Central Intelligence Agency, the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Atlanta chapter of FBI affiliate InfraGard.