Italy probes e-mail hack of state employees

ROME: Italian police are investigating a hack into the email accounts of government employees by activist group Anonymous, which then published documents it extracted.

On its Italian blog, Anonymous uploaded a screenshot of an email purportedly sent from a government email address to an employee of Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s office, containing the names of a security detail that would accompany an official inspection at a site Gentiloni is due to visit this week.

Specialised police uncovered the attack on Saturday, the date of the Anonymous post, and immediately started investigating, state police said in a statement on Tuesday.

Email addresses and documents were taken from the personal inboxes of an employee of the Defence Ministry and a member of the police, the statement said, but “technical investigations ... as of now have not turned up further compromises of institutional information systems”.

Anonymous also published a letter containing radio frequencies to be used on a visit by Gentiloni to Brussels, and orders to Rome police on dealing with demonstrations.

It also published several payslips, copies of personal identification documents and details of military salaries.

An investigative source said the probe was ongoing. — Reuters