Hacker Collective SiegedSec Hacks Group Behind Project 2025

On July 9, SiegedSec, a hacktivist collective of gay furries, successfully breached the Heritage Foundation’s databases.

The collective has done several acts of pro-trans and leftist hacktivism in the past, such as leaking data from the far-right media outlet app for Real America’s Voice, leaking HR records from the Idaho National Laboratory, and breaching government databases from states with anti-trans legislation. SiegedSec targeted the Heritage Foundation on the seventh day of their “Seven Days of Siege.” This involved hacks of groups such as IT companies in Israel, NATO, Amplify AI, and more. 

In their Telegram post, SiegedSec explained why they hacked the Heritage Foundation. SiegedSec writes, “The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank in America, among the most influential public policy organizations. this organization is responsible for leading Project 2025, an authoritarian Christian nationalist plan to reform the United States government. Project 2025 threatens the rights of abortion healthcare and LGBTQ+ communities in particular. so of course, we won’t stand for that!” 

The data leaked by the group includes full names, email addresses, and passwords for every user in the Heritage Foundation database. A spokesperson for the group, vio, told CyberScoop that they released the data to provide “transparency to the public regarding who exactly is supporting heritage.” 

After the leak became public, Executive Director of the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project Mike Howell, reached out to SiegedSec via Signal, an encrypted messaging service. SeigedSec released a chat log of these messages on their Telegram. The messages quickly increased in intensity, with Howell actively threatening vio (SiegedSec’s spokesperson) and other SiegedSec members.

Howell writes, “Are you aware that you won’t be able to wear a furry tiger costume when you’re getting pounded in the ass in the federal prison I put you in next year?” Howell confirmed with the Daily Dot that these were, in fact, real messages he sent, and made an X post of a screenshot of the messages alongside lyrics of an Eminem song. 

As of July 11, the Heritage Foundation denied the hack in an email to The Verge. Spokesperson Noah Weinrich wrote that the hack was a “false narrative and an exaggeration by a group of criminal trolls trying to get attention,” and that “no Heritage systems were breached at any time, and all Heritage databases and websites remain secure, including Project 2025.”

SiegedSec spokesperson vio responded to this and told The Verge that “Mike’s threats and insults showed anger that confirmed what Heritage denied.”