The hacking collective NullCrew claims it broke into the Cambridge University system last week because Britain is refusing to grant safe passage out of the country for the besieged founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.
Nullcrew, a hacking collective with ties to Anonymous, posted stolen information, including plain-text user names and passwords, to Pastebin on Aug. 24 along with a press release.
"There is much more where this came from, and don't think this is the end. NullCrew, along with the whole Anonymous movement isn't near finished with you. And we never will be, until the right thing is done with Julian Assange. Next time it will be worse, we guarantee it," the post said.
Assange, whom British authorities wish to extradite to Sweden, is currently staying at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.
The four compromised domains, whose URLs were published alongside the account information, were taken offline after Cambridge learned of the attack. As of this writing those domains were still not operational.
The attack is part of an effort called Operation Free Assange aimed at persuading the British government to allow the WikiLeaks founder and editor to leave for Ecuador, which has granted him political asylum.
Sweden has requested that Assange be extradited to face criminal sex accusations. (He has not been charged.) Assange and others cite concerns that once he was in Sweden, the United States would attempt to prosecute Assange for publishing classified documents.
The British government has threatened to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy based on an obscure British law. In response, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said, "it would be suicidal for Great Britain to enter Ecuador's embassy. Later on, they could have their own embassies violated in all corners of the globe, and they'd have nothing to say about it,"
As a part of Operation Free Assange, Anonymous claimed to hack the UK's Ministry of Justice, Department of Work and Pensions and prime minister's websites last week. Various Anonymous-affiliated Twitter accounts announced the purported takedowns.
"We are aware of the NullCrew claims and investigations are under way,” a spokeswoman for the university told Cambridge News.
