Last week, hackers affiliated with Anonymous claimed they had hacked Dutch electronics giant Philips, and published 200,000 stolen emails. However, Philips says that the emails posted last week closely resemble emails that were stolen back in February.

On Wednesday last week, a blog called AnonHackNews published a post entitled "Philips Database Hacked!", with links to various SQL databases and email archives.

Other Anonymous-linked sources claimed that the stolen files contained 200,000 emails, at least 1,000 of which contained vital credentials allowing others to use users’ personal information.

However, a spokesman from Philips told Information Age that the descriptions of stolen files posted on websites by Anonymous after the attack are consistent with files posted after the company was hacked back in February.

“We have determined that many of the recently posted files are identical to one another,” the spokesman said, adding that Philips treats each claim of hacking as a “serious event” and will continue its process of examinng the files’ contents.

Philips is standing by the same statement it issued on August 21 after it was claimed that its SQL databases had been leaked in full by hacktivist group r00tbeer, the spokesman said.

The statement read: “As previously communicated, the event of earlier this year related to some of Philips’ internet micro-sites, which are small websites used for campaigns and marketing promotions. On February 13, Philips immediately disabled the affected sites and it initiated an investigation eventually including third-party data security experts, Philips experts and law enforcement."

“After an extensive investigation, Philips concluded its probe into the security issue in April and has taken steps to improve security to protect our valued customers’ data against future criminal activity,” it said.