HBGary Federal had reportedly stalked the key senior members of Anonymous, which ironically has no real hierarchy, in the IRC channels and the Facebook groups supposedly used by the said members. This endeavour was to apprehend the leaders of the group for their attack on PayPal and Mastercard for hurting WikiLeaks interests.
Its a bad move, because Anonymous responded with a more sophisticated hack, as compared to the simple DDOS attacks using the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), this time by breaking into HBGary s email system and uploading 60,000 of its official emails on file-sharing networks. The Internet group then defaced HBGary Federal official website, which still isn t working, by posting an image declaring their agenda.
Anonymous posted during the attack claiming that the information (names and addresses) procured by HBGary's against the hacker group isn t authentic.They also targeted HBGary's chief Aaron Barr's Twitter account to post abuse, in addition to publishing private information about his residence and social security number. LinkedIn accounts of senior HBGary officials were also compromised by Anonymous.
Anonymous, comprises of the Internet geeks and trolls alike, with a burgeoning roster of computer professionals and determined hackers, and has been known to lead successful online as well as offline protests against Iranian Elections, Australian censorship, The Church of Scientology, and the subversive YouTube porn day attacks. This is yet another example of why you don t mess with the Internets.
