OTTAWA – The federal Conservatives are confirming that information about party contributors was downloaded by the hackers who pranked the prime minister this week.
Party spokesman Fred DeLorey issued a statement today saying data containing names, addresses and email addresses of donors was taken.
He said no "useful" credit card information was accessed, but in some cases, the first four and last four digits of credit cards were compromised.
On Tuesday, a hacker or hackers broke into the Tory website security system and posted a false alert that Stephen Harper had been rushed to a Toronto hospital after choking on a hash brown.
The notice sent journalists scurrying to confirm the rumour, which proved to be a hoax.
DeLorey insisted Tuesday that the party’s database and email systems were not affected by the hack.
That seemed to be taken as a taunt by the hackers, who go by the Twitter account LulzRaft.
"The Conservatives said no contributor data was accessed … I wonder where this sample came from then!," LulzRaft tweeted Wednesday morning, attaching a list of 5,631 contributors and their email addresses.
DeLorey said that although much of the information is available on the Elections Canada site, the party intends to contact people whose data was taken.
"We are very disturbed by this hacking and will continue our internal investigation, as well as work with the authorities on this matter," he said.
"To our knowledge, the person or people responsible may have been linked to hacks on Sony, Nintendo, and PBS, and we will be reviewing our own practices and will make the necessary changes to prevent something like this happening in the future."
In one of several tweets, LulzRaft said journalists were off line suggesting enmity toward the Conservatives or Harper were behind the hacking.
"The dots connected by the media are imaginary. No discrimination by party … we just don’t like politicians," LulzRaft tweeted.
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