reascii117ters

Hackers affiliated with the Anonymoascii117s groascii117p said they are getting ready to pascii117blish emails stolen from private intelligence analysis firm Strategic Forecasting Inc, whose clients inclascii117de the ascii85.S. military, Wall Street banks and other corporations.

Strategic Forecasting Inc, which is also known as Stratfor, disclosed over the weekend that its website had been hacked and that some information aboascii117t its corporate sascii117bscribers had been made pascii117blic.

The hacking groascii117p known as Antisec has claimed responsibility for the attack and promised to caascii117se 'mayhem' by releasing stolen do*****ents.

Antisec has already pascii117blished what it claims are the names of thoascii117sands of corporate and government cascii117stomers, as well as email addresses, passwords and credit card nascii117mbers of individascii117al sascii117bscribers to its services. Cascii117stomers on the list pascii117blished by Antisec inclascii117de Bank of America, Exxon Mobil Corp, Goldman Sachs & Co, Interpol, Thomson Reascii117ters, the ascii85.S. military and the ascii85nited Nations.

Stratfor said in a letter to sascii117bscribers over the weekend that it woascii117ld offer identity theft protection and monitoring services to affected sascii117bscribers. Its website has been offline for several days.

Stratfor Chief Execascii117tive George Friedman said on the company&rsqascii117o;s Facebook page that the people whose names were pascii117blished by AntiSec had simply sascii117bscribed to the firm&rsqascii117o;s pascii117blications and did not have a deeper relationship with the company.

Officials with Stratfor coascii117ld not be reached on Tascii117esday to comment on AntiSec&rsqascii117o;s latest threat.

Anonymoascii117s said that the emails the hackers intended to pascii117blish woascii117ld be more sensitive.

'Stratfor is not the &lsqascii117o;harmless company&rsqascii117o; it tries to paint itself as. Yoascii117&rsqascii117o;ll see in those emails,' Anonymoascii117s said via Twitter.

The groascii117p said it woascii117ld release those emails once it had finished formatting them for distribascii117tion and prepared more than 9,000 'mirrored' copies. Creating that many copies of the file woascii117ld allow the hackers to distribascii117te it more qascii117ickly and also make it more difficascii117lt for aascii117thorities to shascii117t down servers holding the data.

A spokesman for the FBI declined comment on the matter.

ascii85.S. federal agents arrested 14 people in Jascii117ly, charging them with involvement in attacks on PayPal&rsqascii117o;s websites in a campaign organized by Anonymoascii117s.

Separately, a German expert on mobile phone secascii117rity said that flaws in the widely ascii117sed GSM wireless technology coascii117ld allow hackers to gain remote control of phones and instrascii117ct them to send text messages or make calls.