Cyber Incident Victim: Chamber of Deputies
Date:
Nov 2019
Location:
Italy
Summary
A hacktivist operation involving Anonymous Italia and LulzSecITA compromised multiple Italian entities, including the Chamber of Deputies, regional prefectures, professional legal orders, and a telecommunications provider. The groups leaked sensitive documents such as identification records, financial data, and internal communications, reportedly exfiltrating 5.4 GB of data from the telecom operator to demonstrate security vulnerabilities. They framed the breaches as exposing institutional failures in privacy protection while claiming non-malicious intent focused on raising awareness rather than financial exploitation.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 2 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On November 5, 2019, coinciding with the global Million Mask March protest associated with Anonymous, Italian hacktivist groups Anonymous Italia and LulzSecITA executed cyber intrusions against multiple Italian institutions and private entities. The coordinated attacks targeted the Chamber of Deputies (Italy's lower parliamentary house), the prefecture of Naples, professional legal orders in Arezzo, Grosseto, and Perugia, environmental agencies in Abruzzo and Puglia regions, and telecommunications provider Lyca Mobile's Italian operations. These actions formed part of Operation Vendetta, an annual demonstration protesting political corruption, police violence, and environmental policy failures. Hacktivists breached websites and extracted sensitive data to publicly expose perceived institutional vulnerabilities. While full technical details of the parliamentary breach weren't disclosed, the Chamber of Deputies intrusion represented a significant compromise of national legislative infrastructure. The prefecture of Naples hack similarly implicated regional government systems. Professional legal orders faced unauthorized access to their digital platforms, though specific data exfiltrated from these entities remained unspecified in available reports.
LulzSecITA separately compromised Lyca Mobile's Italian website, exfiltrating 5.4 gigabytes of sensitive customer and corporate data subsequently leaked online. The stolen records included scanned identity documents (passports, driver's licenses, ID cards), telephone call records, and credit card information. Forensic analysis suggested attackers gained full control of the corporate email account lycamobile[at]lycamobile[.]it, potentially enabling broader system access. Hacktivists emphasized their intrusion aimed to demonstrate security deficiencies rather than conduct financial fraud, stating the breach exposed institutional failures in protecting citizen privacy. No independent verification confirmed the authenticity of all leaked Lyca Mobile documents at the time of disclosure. Anonymous Italia publicly justified the attacks as exposing governmental hypocrisy regarding privacy enforcement, asserting through released statements that victims' inadequate cybersecurity measures violated the very data protection laws they were mandated to uphold. The incidents collectively highlighted systemic vulnerabilities across both public institutions and private sector entities handling sensitive personal data.