A hacking collective says it has gained access to an FBI computer and recovered millions of unique identifying codes belonging to users of Apple devices.

A UDID is a unique 40-character alphanumeric code once assigned to Apple devices such as iPods and iPads to help developers monitor users of their applications.

Hacking group AntiSec issued a Monday statement saying it recovered about 12 million of these unique identifiers from an FBI agent’s laptop by exploiting a Java vulnerability.

AntiSec, which appears to be affiliated with the renegade hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec, decided to post a million of the UDIDs online.

“We trimmed out other personal data as, full names, cell numbers, addresses,zipcodes, etc.,” the collective said in its lengthy statement.

Apple announced it would start to phase out the codes in August 2011 due to privacy concerns and reports indicate the company has since definitely ended use of them.

AntiSec said the breached laptop contained no information as to why millions of unique device identifiers were sitting on an FBI computer.

The group claims to have obtained the information from a Dell Vostro notebook belonging to FBI Special Agent Christopher Stangl, who once appeared in a video urging people with computer science backgrounds to become cyber security experts.

AntiSec says the leaked UDID list contains just enough information for users to see if their own codes have been posted online.

The collective’s statement indicates the breach was preceded by a speech by National Security Agency Gen. Keith Alexander at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas last July.

In his speech, Alexander encouraged the conference’s young computer hackers to enter professions related to cyber-security and online privacy.

“Well ... We got the message. We decided we'd help out Internet security by auditing FBI first,” AntiSec’s statement read.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.