Anon hackers to expose Aussie cybercops?

A preview leak from a hacking group sympathetic to the cause of Anonymous and Operation Anti-Security, or AntiSec, has today threatened to expose communications between one of Europe's top cybercrime divisions and its global partners including those based in Australia.

The leak posted on sharing site Pastebin today purports to be a sample of operational information from the Italian-based National Anti-Crime Computer Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection (which in Italian abbreviates to CNAIPIC).

"This is a pre-release of a series we are going to make to reveal the biggest in history of European [Law Enforcement] cyber-operation, evidence exploitation and abuse," the hackers said on Pastebin, offering a preview of files available in two downloadable archives while offering a screenshot of another preview.

"Today we reveal a whole load of stuff (estimated leak would be over 8GB) from such owned institutions," the hacker group said, adding that it is poised to release information from various European agencies and embassies, as well as the Australian "Ministry of Defence".

Leaked preview documents include photographs of what appears to be the Italian cybercrime operations centre as well as members of the team and identification cards of Middle Eastern origin, faxes and letters.

The leaked documents are also allegedly linked to legal firms representing the US Department of Justice.

The hacker communique accuses the CNAIPIC of misusing information found on seized computers for financial gain.

ZDNet Australia attempted to contact the hackers to find out when more information would appear online, but no response had been received at the time of publication.

ZDNet Australia also attempted to contact the office of the CNAIPIC for comment, but no response was received.