Heritage Foundation Gay Furry Hack

Overview

Heritage Foundation Gay Furry Hack refers to a hacktivist group's leak of internal data from the conservative United States think tank the Heritage Foundation in mid-July 2024. A self-professed group of "Gay Furry Hackers" took credit for the leak on their Telegram channel, where they notably call themselves "SiegedSec." The group has taken credit for a series of hacks and leaks targeting conservative American groups in 2024.

Background

On July 9th, 2024, SeigedSec, a self-described gay furry hacktivist group, posted about hacking and leaking internal data from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C., to their Telegram^[1] channel called "SiegedSecurity" (seen below). The think tank is best known for its work on the controversial Project 2025 campaign.

Images from the data dump were reposted to X^[2] by user @ZachTheW0lf on July 9th, gathering over 48,000 likes in two days.

Developments

On July 10th, 2024 SeigedSec posted a Signal chat log^[3] between the Heritage Foundation's Mike Howell and the group behind the hack. The chats show the hacker and Howell exchanging words, with Howell threatening to expose the furry's real identities and calling them "degenerate perverts" (shown below).

The validity of these chats was later confirmed by journalist Mikael Thalen^[4] in a public correspondence with Mike Howell on July 10th (seen below).

Also on July 10th, 2024, X^[5] user @HackingButLegal posted a thread analyzing some of the data leaked by SeigedSec, concluding that several comments on the Heritage Foundation's website originated from Asian countries (seen below).

SiegedSec also announced that they were disbanding in their Telegram^[1] channel on July 10th following the leaks.

Search Interest

External References