Anonymous-offshoot LulzSec may have received the lion’s share of recent attention [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], but Anonymous itself has been quite active over the last year as well, inciting opposition to Middle Eastern dictatorships, disgracing government contractor HBGary, and battling Sony Corp. (TYO:6758).
Most recently Anonymous has joined with LulzSec‘s key players in an ambitious campaign of populist cyberwarfare dubbed “AntiSec”, that targets governments, government contractors, and businesses internationally that the hackers feel are corrupt. In recent weeks U.S. government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. (BAH) and agriculture giant Monsanto Comp. (MON) have been targets of AntiSec [1].
I. NATO Hacked by AntiSec
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was already hacked by LulzSec in a minor breach of an e-reader system. However, an Anonymous-affiliate Twitter feed, AnonymousIRC, claims to have gained access to a much larger treasure trove of NATO secrets.
The feed comments:
We are sitting on about one Gigabyte of data from NATO now, most of which we cannot publish as it would be irresponsible. But Oh NATO….
Hi NATO. Yes we haz more of your delicious data. You wonder where from? No hints, your turn. You call it war; we laugh at your battleships.
Initially, a pair of documents were published. The first was named “CIS Support for New HQ ISAF Joint CIS Control Centre”, while the second was named “Outsourcing of Balkans CIS Support”. Both were posted to and quickly yanked from PDFCast.org, with the site citing usage violations. The former was published on Scribd, while the latter was republished on another PDF hosting site here [PDF]. Later another document was published [PDF] — ironically entitled “Security Within the NATO”.
NATO in a statement commented, “NATO is aware that a hackers group has released what it claims to be NATO classified documents on the internet. NATO security experts are investigating these claims. We strongly condemn any leak of classified documents, which can potentially endanger the security of NATO Allies, armed forces and citizens.”
Anonymous fired back on Twitter:
“NATO strongly condemns any leak of classified documents, which can potentially endanger the security of..” RLY. Guess what we did NOT leak?
The attacks come shortly after the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations arrested 14 alleged members of Anonymous. The arrests likely will not affect Anonymous‘s operations significantly, as the entity is a group without a leader, with numerous organizers and thousands of members. It’s also possible that the FBI was duped into arresting enemies of Anonymous, as appeared to be the case in the recent arrest of ex-Anonymous hacker Robert Cavenaugh, who had a bitter falling out with the group. In Mr. Cavenaugh’s case the FBI was led to believe he was part of LulzSec, a suggestion LulzSec greeted with derision.
II. Anonymous “Hacked”?
Anonymous was recently given the boot unceremoniously off of Google Inc.’s (GOOG) social network Google+.
Anonymous responded by creating a new social network dubbed “AnonPlus”, which it describes stating, “[AnonPlus is a] social network where there is no fear…of censorship…of blackout…nor of holding back.”
The site — which in is current, undeveloped form is essentially just a message board — launched a couple days ago, but has gone offline following it being defaced, with the message:
We Are TURKIYE. We Are AKINCILAR.
This logo suits you more..How dare you rise against to the World..Do you really think that you are Ottoman Empire?
We thought you before that you cannot challenge with the world and we teach you cannot be social
Now all of you go to your doghouse..
The attacks appear, ostensibly, to be the work of Turkish nationalists or government officials, who were upset about Anonymous‘s recent efforts to attack the government of their country. While AnonPlus isn’t really an official Anonymous site and is intended for non-hackers as well, it appears to have been a low-lying fruit that “TURKIYE”/”AKINCILAR” (the latter being a Turkish term for “raider”) could vent their rage upon.
Anonymous was remarkably quiet about the “hack”/defacement, uncharacteristically failing to type nary a “u mad bro?”
A full description of the intentions for Anon+ is available here. To give a taste, the author states:
Anon+ will be a social network system based on peer to peer (p2p) connectivity using encrypted torrents as the means to hold profile data. There will be a central web site from which you can download the software, and it will also host the system’s secure databases (which keeps track of who is friends with whom and other back office stuff).
So in other words, whatever the attackers managed to deface, was only a holding place for the eventual planned rebellious social network.