Anonymous Hacks Online Military Gear Store

The group posted a statement on the online message board Pastebin Tuesday claiming it stole 14,000 passwords and 8,000 credit card numbers from the site a few months ago. Anonymous claims to have posted the data on the Web.

On Wednesday, Gardena, Calif.-based Special Forces Gear confirmed the hack, which occurred in August. Founder Dave Thomas, a retired lieutenant colonel who served in the Army Special Forces, said the passwords taken were more than a year old, and most of the credit card numbers were expired. "We don't have evidence of any credit card misuse at this time," Thomas said in an e-mail.

After the break in, Thomas said the site was rebuilt and new security measures implemented. The current site does not store customer passwords or credit card information.

Anonymous said it targeted the online store because its customer base is comprised mostly of people connected to the military and law enforcement. The announcement came as part of the group's weeklong campaign called LulzXmas. Anonymous calls the campaign a "celebration of wreaking utter havoc on global financial systems, militaries and governments."

The disclosure came two days after Anonymous reportedly broke into the Web site of security think tank Strategic Forecast, also known as Stratfor. The Austin, Texas-based company confirmed the hack on Christmas Day. Anonymous posted at least 17,000 credit card numbers and passwords on the Web and said it would post 2.7 million stolen e-mails in the future. The group claimed none of the data was encrypted, a potential embarrassment for the U.S. intelligence analysis firm, if true.

Anonymous said the data taken from SpecialForces.com was encrypted. To decipher the information, the organization said it stole the encryption keys from the military gear supplier's server.

The group vowed to continue its campaign.