German police hacked, suspect tracking data stolen

Hackers have broken into the German Federal Police and swiped location data used to track suspects.

The attack launched by the left-wing n0-N4m3 Cr3w hacking group compromised a server used by the country's customs service.

It then published the contents including location coordinates, license plate and telephone numbers, police usernames and passwords, and a GPS application.

The group said in a translated statement that the attack was in response to what it called censorship by the German Government including communications interception and use of biometrics.

"The data retention stored all data communication over 6 months (the plan was dumped last year) and critics of this law came out of the population with [politicians],' it said.

"Retention. Telecommunications interception. Online searches. Advanced dragnet. Storage of all fingerprints. Biometric passport data. The automatic detection of license plates. Passenger data storage, mail monitoring, Census 2011 - so [bad] is the state of freedom and civil rights."

The German Federal Police told H-Online investigation data was not compromised but contained data on the use of the police PATRAS tracking system which was distributed among customs officials.

The tracking system server had been switched off and Germany's Federal Office for Information Security is investigating.

Its the second significant attack by the group in as many months. In June, it stole up to 400 names and home addresses of supporters of Germany’s neo-Nazi National Democratic Party and published them on Google Maps.

The group stole the details of financial backers after hacking 25 NDP websites.