Hackers Targeting Anti-abortion States After Roe v. Wade Decision

Hackers targeting anti-abortion states after the Supreme Court’s ruling last week to eliminate the nearly 50-year-old federal constitutional right to have an abortion have leaked the personal data of two U.S. state governments, reports Tech Monitor.

Hacking gang SiegedSec released eight gigabytes of information reportedly stolen from state governments in Arkansas and Kentucky in retaliation for restricting abortion access.

A 2019 Kentucky trigger law that halted nearly all abortions went into effect Friday after the Roe v. Wade ruling.

The law is being challenged in court by Planned Parenthood and EMW Women’s Surgical Center. They claim abortion is still a right under the Kentucky Constitution.

In Arkansas, Attorney General Leslie Rutledge made abortion a felony after the Roe v. Wade decision.

"I am proud to announce, as chief legal officer for the state of Arkansas, that the United States Supreme Court has in fact overruled Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, thereby restoring the state of Arkansas the authority to prohibit abortions," Rutledge said.

SiegedSec in a Telegram post said the attacks would continue.

"Our main targets are any pro-life entities, including government servers of the states with anti-abortion laws,” they said.

Arkansas officials said the released data was not as private as the hackers implied.

Officials "became aware that a so-called hacktivists group claimed to have accessed and downloaded internal documents from the State of Arkansas systems," said Shealyn Sowers, a spokeswoman for Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican. "After initial analysis, our security teams have determined that there was no access beyond what is publicly available, and only public record data was seen or downloaded."

A spokeswoman for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, said the data “does not include personally identifying information, the state will continue its investigation.”