BUSINESS INSIDER: Hacker group Anonymous (aka OperationLeaks on Twitter) just released what they say is a trove of damning documents on Bank of America. You can find them here: bankofamericasuck.com Remember, at this point, we can’t verify whether they are legitimate or not, but Gawker’s Adrien Chen, who has sources within Anonymous, suggest there’s something real to the leaks. Anonymous says the emails deal with BofA’s mortgage practices, but the source is not an employee of Bank of America proper — the source is a former employee from Balboa Insurance, a firm which used to be owned by BofA. As you will see below, we believe that the evidence that is supposed to be so damning is a series of emails showing that employees of Balboa asked for certain loan identifying numbers to be deleted, and they were. Anonymous said late Sunday evening, however, “this is part 1 of the Emails.” So perhaps more incriminating correspondence is to come. And to be honest, these messages could be incredibly damaging, but we’re not mortgage specialists and don’t know if this is or isn’t common in the field. The beauty is, you can see and decide for yourself at bankofamericasuck.com. But for those who want a simple explanation, here’s a summary of the content. MORE
FORTUNE: The release will come three and a half months after Wikileaks founder Julian Assange breezily promised to “take down a bank or two” by releasing “either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents.” Assange likened the documents to the ones that prosecutors used in bringing top executives of failed energy trader Enron to justice. In any case, Assange himself said he didn’t think the leaked documents rose to the level of criminal behavior, and the banks have more or less shown that they don’t really mind anything short of that. So whatever gets leaked seems distinctly unlikely to make BofA chief Brian Moynihan blush — let alone bring down a $145 billion bank whose survival became an explicit goal of government policy during the financial meltdown. MORE
RELATED: So will the bank take a big hit when the markets open later this morning as a result of the Anonymous leaks? Maybe. The leak as it stands has some potential to give the world insight into just how (allegedly, of course) BofA went about improperly foreclosing on homeowners. There seems to be an organized effort to tamper with loan numbers and paper trails so that alone will pour salt on the bank’s foreclosure wounds. Anonymous said on its Twitter account that today’s release is just Part One of other e-mails it will release on the issue. If those new e-mails detail exactly why these employees were switching or erasing information in loan accounts then BofA better lawyer up. MORE
RELATED: A BofA spokesman said on Sunday the documents were clerical and administrative documents stolen by a former Balboa Insurance employee, and were not related to foreclosures. “We are confident that his extravagant assertions are untrue,” the spokesman said. MORE