Hackers say they have hit the website for electronics manufacturer AVX as part of an an attack campaign dubbed #OperationGreenRights.
According to a post on Pastebin, hackers in the Anonymous collective found a SQL injection vulnerability on the company’s website and used it to extract information from a corporate database. The purported data has been published online and can be viewed here.
AVX did not respond to a request for comment on the situation. As of the time of this publishing, AVX.com remains down, displaying only a message stating the company is “performing essential maintenance” and that periodic updates will be posted. The company also listed numbers for its offices.
Based in South Carolina, AVX manufactures components for a number of products, including cell phones and copiers. In the Pastebin post, minds behind the attack however say it is the company’s interest in extracting the ore coltan from the Congo that triggered the attack.
“A civil war has grew up in Kivu, east Congo, in 2012 and it’s due to the warlord Mr. Ntaganda formerly involved in 1998 war for coltan,” the group said. “We underline that Kivu in very rich in coltan mines. So we know that AVX was directly involved in Congo’s war in 1998 but no one force them to pay for their crimes and in 2012 no one can guarantee that AVX is not taking coltan from Congo’s war areas.”
Coltan is one of several minerals often referred to as ‘conflict minerals’, which are mined in war-torn areas and sometimes sold by rebel groups and militias to finance their activities.
For its part, AVX has said it is committed to a conflict-free supply chain, and has worked to develop industry standards for the supply of tantalum, which is extracted from coltan. According to the company, since Dec. 1, 2011, it has exclusively sourced tantalum and wire used to manufacture its tantalum capacitors from smelters verified to be in compliance with the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC) and the Global e-Sustainability Initiative Conflict-Free Smelter (GeSI) program.
“Employing only EICC/GeSI independently validated, conflict-free smelters, in addition to our own supply chain assessment activities has allowed us to assure our customers of our compliance with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, due diligence guidelines as well as with the provisions detailed in the Dod-Frank law,” said Bill Millman, director of quality and technology for AVX’s tantalum division, in a statement Aug. 16.
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