, who claimed to execute some of
its most aggressive online attacks, including on the
Ah, old school methods work in cyberspace! J
Authorities have made a breakthrough in their
campaign against the
Anonymous hacking
group and its offshoot, Lulz Security or
LulzSec, after it emerged that an alleged leading
member of the collective turned FBI informant.
Anonymous is a large, amorphous group of
so-called hacktivists who have aligned themselves
with anti-capitalist protesters Occupy Wall Street
and the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks. They have
carried out hacking raids on corporations and
institutions including
Sony, the
CIA,
News Corp’s
British tabloid The Sun and the UK’s Serious
Organised Crime Agency.
The
US Department of
Justice charged five alleged members of
Anonymous and LulzSec in the US and elsewhere on
Tuesday with conspiracy and hacking-related crimes.
Among them was Hector Xavier Monsegur, a New York
resident whose online identity is alleged to be
Sabu.
Mr Monsegur has been co-operating with the FBI,
a law enforcement official said.
Court documents said that Mr Monsegur had been
involved in denial-of-service attacks – whereby a
site is flooded with so much traffic it becomes
swamped and is knocked offline –
against Visa,
Paypal and Mastercard in December 2010. The
attack was dubbed “Operation Payback” after the
companies refused to process funds for WikiLeaks.
The court papers said he had also hacked
government IT systems in the Middle East,
including Tunisia and Algeria.
In an attack on News Corp’s Fox Broadcasting,
Mr Monsegur is alleged to have stolen confidential
information relating to contestants on the reality
TV show X Factor. He is also accused of
having used his hacking skills for personal gain,
including credit card fraud and hijacking the
systems of an automotive parts supplier to have
thousands of dollars of engine components shipped
to him.
Although a key part of Anonymous’ philosophy is
that it lacks hierarchy and is open to any
volunteers, Sabu was among the most prominent
members of the group alongside others with the
online names Kayla, T-flow and Topiary, who
claimed to execute some of its most aggressive
online attacks, including on the
security firm
HBGary.
In a posting to his Twitter account, which has
remained silent since news of the arrests broke,
Sabu told his 45,000 followers that the US
government was run by “cowards”: “Don’t give in to
these people. Fight back. Stay strong.” In his
last public post, in German, he quotes Rosa
Luxemburg, the German communist revolutionary:
“The revolution says I am, I was, I will be.”
The
Financial Times Limited 2012.