Hacker group posts data stolen from 70 police websites in US

Tim Mayfield, a police chief in Gassville, Ark., said some of the material posted online - pictures of teenage girls in their swimsuits - related to an ongoing investigation, which he declined to discuss further.

Mayfield’s comments were the first indication that the hack might be serious. Since news that some kind of an attack filtered out early last week, various police officials dismissed it as nothing to worry about.

“We’ve not lost any information,’’ was one typical response, given by McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy to WDEF-TV in Tennessee on Tuesday.

But many of Guy’s e-mails were among those leaked to the Web, and others carried sensitive information, including tips about suspected crimes, profiles of gang members, and security training.

The e-mails were mainly from sheriffs’ offices in places such as Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Mississippi. Most, if not all, of their websites were either unavailable or had been wiped clean of content.

Anonymous said in a statement that it was leaking “a massive amount of confidential information that is sure to [embarrass], discredit and incriminate police officers across the US.’’ The group added that it hoped the disclosures would “demonstrate the inherently corrupt nature of law enforcement using their own words’’ and “disrupt and sabotage their ability to communicate and terrorize communities.’’

The group also posted five credit card numbers it said it used to make “involuntary donations.’’ At least four of the names and other personal details published to the Internet appeared genuine, although those individuals who were contacted said they did not know whether their financial information had been compromised.

Many calls to various sheriffs’ offices across the country went unanswered or weren’t returned, but several others confirmed that a cyberattack had taken place.

In Arkansas, St. Francis County Sheriff Bobby May said his department and several others were targeted in retaliation for the arrest of hackers who had targeted Apple Computer Inc., among other companies.