WASHINGTON (KMOX) – The Federal Reserve says an internal website was briefly breached by hackers on Sunday, making it the latest government agency to fall victim to a cyberattack.

It involved a database that belongs to the St. Louis Fed Emergency Communications System.

The Fed says the website contained contact information for more than 4,000 banking executives, including office and cell phone numbers. The information had been collected so the Fed could reach executives during natural disasters, such as hurricanes.

The hacking group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

• Listen to Carol Daniel’s full interview with David Maestas, security expert for Techguard in O’Fallon, Mo.  He believes that the federal government is out gunned in cyberspace.

“The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product,” according to a Richmond Fed statement from Jim Strader, a spokesman for the regional bank that runs the central bank’s information-technology office. “This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve System.”

Jon Waldman, Vice-President of Professional Services at Secure Banking Solutions told KMOX that the Federal Reserve is incorrect by saying critical operations were not affected.

“There’s not necessarily any monetary or transactional fraud risk that’s eminent as a result of this exposure,” Waldman said. “Our best guess it that this was really the least sensitive amount of information that they probably have. “

Waldman says Anonymous has already distributed files throughout the internet, and they’re asking the Department of Justice to respond to their requests or demands for cyber punishment reform, otherwise they will release the encrypted files.

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