IDG News Service - The California security company that is at the center of a controversy over a plan to discredit WikiLeaks and its supporters abruptly pulled itself out of the RSA security conference in San Francisco this week, citing security concerns.
The company's subsidiary, HBGary Federal, also cancelled a talk it had planned to give on the Internet activist group, Anonymous. It was news of this talk that riled Anonymous and precipitated the controversy last week.
HBGary has been under fire for several days now after its Web sites, corporate email system and Twitter accounts were hacked, and details of a company business proposal to discredit WikiLeaks were posted to the Internet. The attack was apparently launched by Anonymous in response to HBGary Federal's CEO Aaron Barr's talk, which had been slated for Monday morning. Barr said he had discovered the identities of many of Anonymous's leaders, and had planned to discuss his investigation in a talk at the BSides San Francisco conference, which runs in tandem with RSA.
