On July 16 over 70 United Kingdom filling stations were shut down by Greenpeace activists protesting Shell's Arctic drilling plans. Meanwhile, hackers with the group Anonymous launched their own anti-Arctic drilling action in solidarity with Greenpeace.
The Moscow Times reports that members of Anonymous gleaned email messages and account details, including passwords, from five different Arctic-associated oil and gas companies. Some of the information was later leaked online.
The hackers posted a statement to the website Pastebin.com, claiming they had acted in solidarity with Greenpeace's anti-Arctic drilling actions, but not on the organization's behalf.
Companies affected included Shell, ExxonMobil, Gazprom, Rosneft and BP Global. Some 270 accounts were victim to the security breach. Anonymous stated that a mistake by the webmaster, not a softwear imperfection, allowed the hackers access.