Planned Parenthood Data Hack: No Evidence Of Breach Found Yet

A hacker collective called 3301 claimed Sunday to have hacked Planned Parenthood servers and threatened to release internal data, names and email addresses of employees and patients. But Planned Parenthood says no such breach has been found.

“We’ve seen the claims around attempts to access our systems. We take security very seriously and are investigating. Once we have investigated, we may make future statements,” said Tom Subak, Planned Parenthood's chief information officer, in an email to International Business Times. “We think we have really good security, especially flagging suspicious behavior. We have not [received any flags].”

The hackers have yet to follow through on their threats but say they will release the information “soon,” according to the Daily Dot. The attack is apparently politically motivated and follows the release of an edited undercover video released earlier this month that shows a Planned Parenthood senior director discussing the donation of fetus organs and tissue for medical research, which is legal. The full, nearly three-hour video was uploaded to YouTube by The Center for Medical Progress and also shows the director explaining how the embryonic cells can help lead to a cure for degenerative neurological diseases, brain tumors and spinal cord injuries.

“Trying to mold an atrocious monstrosity into socially acceptable behaviors is repulsive,” one of the hackers, who goes by the pseudonym “E,” told the Daily Dot. “Obviously what [Planned Parenthood] does is a very ominous practice. It’ll be interesting to see what surfaces when [Planned Parenthood] is stripped naked and exposed to the public.”

The hackers have not yet said when they will release the information but did say they used an attack that exploits unseen error messages. They were apparently originally planning to redirect the Planned Parenthood site to their Twitter account but were unable to do so because the “back end is so terribly configured.”

“It’s unsurprising that those opposed to safe and legal abortion are participating in this campaign of harassment against us and our patients and claiming to stoop to this new low,” said Planned Parenthood Vice President Dawn Laguens.

On the website that 3301 allegedly dumped the data, they posted a message saying that they are “social justice warriors, seeking to reclaim some sort of lulz for the years and thousands of dollars that Planned Parenthood have wasted and made harvesting your babies.”