The social media platform X suspended the account run by SiegedSec, the hacker group of self-described gay furries.
The ban, announced by the SiegedSec member known as vio, came amid a multi-day leaking campaign that saw data from numerous entities posted online.
“SiegedSec account suspended,” vio wrote. “this current account will be used as a backup until a new one is set up :3.”
Yesterday’s leak came from Amplify AI, a company that provides AI-driven comment moderation solutions for Facebook and Instagram. It included basic account information, such as email addresses, for company employees, an analysis by the Daily Dot found.
A screenshot shared on SiegedSec’s Telegram channel also suggested that the group gained access to company source code as well as an administrator portal, which allegedly included direct messages from an account run by the campaign for President Joe Biden.
SiegedSec also leaked data the day before which it reportedly obtained from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a group that the hackers have repeatedly targeted in the past. Examination of the data by the Daily Dot showed contact information, including email addresses and phone numbers, for high-ranking military officials across the globe and an assortment of unclassified documents.
The breaches came on the heels of what SiegedSec dubbed #OpIsrael, a campaign targeting companies in Israel in protest of the ongoing war in Palestine. Yet despite the flurry of hacks and leaks in recent weeks and months, SiegedSec believes one hack in particular ultimately led them to be shut down on X.
After several months of teasing, SiegedSec recently announced that it had pilfered data from the Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. The group had been promising to publish the data on Wednesday.
“they didnt want us posting the heritage hack tomorrow,” vio said on Tuesday.
The Daily Dot was granted access to examine the data, which appears to relate to the Daily Signal, the media arm of The Heritage Foundation. The data looks to include the usernames, IP addresses, and personal email addresses of those who commented on articles from the outlet.
X did not provide a statement on the ban when emailed by the Daily Dot. However, the platform has suspended users before for posting data related to breaches.
In a screenshot shared by vio with the Daily Dot, X stated that a user had reported SeigedSec’s account for violating its “rules against posting private information.”
Update 11:16am CT, July 11: In a statement to the Daily Dot, the Heritage Foundation criticized the framing of the data breach.
“The Heritage Foundation was not hacked. An organized group stumbled upon a two-year-old archive of The Daily Signal website that was available on a public-facing website owned by a contractor. The information obtained was limited to usernames, names, email addresses, and incomplete password information of both Heritage and non-Heritage content contributors, as well as article comments and the IP address of the commenter. No Heritage systems were breached at any time, and all Heritage databases and websites remain secure, including Project 2025. The data at issue has been taken down, and additional security steps have since been taken as a precaution.”
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
