While onsite IVR applications ensure clients’ security and information using the most advanced technologies, it seems the US Department of Justice missed the memo. As reported on a Plum Voice blog, self-described anonymous “hacktivists” have broken into and invaded the US Department of Justice, securing 1.7 GB of data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ website.

We know that mistakes happen and nothing is perfectly secure, but when a data breach does occur, it puts a serious strain on the company – not to mention the disadvantage of potentially compromising the anonymity and security of its customers. Even worse, what do you do when a federal agency’s database becomes the target? This doesn’t seem enjoyable to be tangled up with in the least.

Although the contents of the hacked data are still unclear, they reportedly contain internal emails and what could very well be the underlying database backbone of the site itself. The jury is still considering whether there is any highly classified or incriminating information within the documents breached.

The hacker, also simply known as “Anonymous,” typically select targets as a way of sending a political statement, or message, if you will. In a video Anonymous released along with the data, they claim, “We are releasing data to spread information, to allow the people to be heard and to know the corruption in their government.  We are releasing it to end the corruption that exists, and truly make those who are oppressed free.”

While a very unfortunate event, The Bureau of Justice Statistics is an extremely interesting site to victimize, as they mainly gather nationwide statistics on criminal reports. In an ironic speculation, it is claimed that Anonymous targeted them partly because they compile information related to cyber crime and hacking incidents. In another crazy twist, the data was then uploaded to a torrent-based delivery system, but after an attempted download by Mashable – a tech blogging website – it was unable to procure the data…because yet another hacker was interfering with the downloading process.

While this case continues to remain a bit mysterious and the contents stolen have not yet been discovered, we can only ask ourselves one question: Is it only a matter of time before another security breach compromises an upstanding organization’s reputation?