[LINK] Anonymous 'hive' strikes back in hacking war

[Kim Holburn]

I noticed a comment in this article that while the FBI and British Police and others were making arrests for the Anonymous pro-wikileaks DDoS of Mastercard, Visa and Paypal no-one was looking for the anti-wikileaks DDoS attackers on wikileaks and their DNS registrar.


http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376861,00.asp
> On Thursday, the FBI said it executed more than 40 search warrants throughout the U.S. related to the DDoS attacks.
> 
> Anonymous said that DDoS attacks are simply the digital equivalent of a protest or sit-in.

....

> "Arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration in their hometown," the group said.
> 
> Anonymous was also annoyed that no one has been arrested for the DDoS attacks on WikiLeaks - only those who have executed attacks in support of WikiLeaks. " We can therefore only assume that these arrests are politically motivated, and were being carried out under pressure from the US government," the group said.



Then today:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/08/3132952.htm

> Anonymous 'hive' strikes back in hacking war
> 
> Hackers operating under the banner 'Anonymous' took credit for breaking into the site. (ABC News: Damien Larkins, file photo)
> 
> A hacker group behind online attacks on companies that withdrew services to WikiLeaks has busted through the defences of a computer security firm working with federal agents to expose their identities.
> 
> Hackers operating under the banner 'Anonymous' took credit for breaking into the website of HBGary Federal, stealing tens of thousands of email messages and temporarily routing traffic to a page with a vitriolic message.
> 
> "You've tried to bite the Anonymous hand," a copy of the message online stated.
> 
> "You angered the hive and now you are being stung."
> 
> Efforts to visit HBGary's website on Monday (US time) were met with an automated post saying the page was "under construction".
> 
> The plundered email accounts included that of HBGary chief executive Aaron Barr, whose separate Twitter account was also reportedly  compromised by someone who tweeted personal information about him and rude messages.
> 
> Stolen email messages were made available online at a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing website, Chester Wisniewski of the Sophos computer security firm said in an online post regarding the hack.
> 
> The HBGary hack was more sophisticated than the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks last year on the Amazon, Visa and MasterCard websites in apparent retaliation for their decisions to stop working with WikiLeaks.
> 
> WikiLeaks had triggered political ire in Washington for its publication of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables and military reports from Iraq and Afghanistan.
> 
> "Unlike the DDoS attacks for which Anonymous has made headlines in recent months, this incident involved true hacking skills," Mr Wisniewski said.
> 
> In a typical DDoS attack, a large number of computers are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming its servers, slowing service or knocking it offline completely.
> 
> HBGary had been working to expose the culprits behind the DDoS attacks and was poised to sell identifying information about members of Anonymous to the FBI, according to Mr Wisniewski.
> 
> Last month, British police arrested five people and the FBI launched raids across the United States as part of a probe into cyberattacks by Anonymous.


http://www.techspot.com/news/42308-anonymous-hacks-security-company-hbgary-for-working-with-fbi.html

> Anonymous hacks security company HBGary for working with FBI 
> By Emil Protalinski, TechSpot.com 
> Published: February 7, 2011, 5:06 PM EST
> 
> HBGary Federal, a security company that is helping the FBI track down the hacker group Anonymous, has become a target itself. The group hacked into HBGary's networks and posted archives of some 50,000 e-mails between company executives. The group also hacked the firm's website, publishing an explanation as to why the website was targeted.
> 
> Last month, authorities in the US and the UK moved against a number of suspected Anonymous members. On the weekend, The Financial Times ran a story quoting Aaron Barr, HBGary's head of security services, saying he had uncovered the identities of Anonymous' leaders. Barr said he planned to release his findings next week at a security conference in San Francisco.
> 
> http://static.techspot.com/fileshost/newspics3/2011/anonymous_hbgary_hacked.jpg
> 
> Having hacked HBGary's website, Anonymous explained that it was releasing Barr's findings on its own because the group was confident the company's conclusions were wrong. As you can see in the above screenshot of the hacked website, the group announced it had no leaders and was quite adamant that the information was nothing new or was simply bogus.
> 
> In December 2010, Anonymous took down websites belonging to MasterCard, PayPal, and Visa, because the payment processors declined to transfer money to WikiLeaks. Last month, the group shut down websites belonging to the Tunisian government and stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country's dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee. Earlier this month, the group hacked Egyptian and Yemen government websites for similar reasons: to show their support for promoting antigovernment protests that have roiled the Arab world.
> 


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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