Anonymous Going Mainstream Following Website Funding

An Anonymous-linked Twitter account has received £36,000 in funding to set up a website, in what could be the first step of the online hacktivist movement going mainstream.

A twitter account which is linked to the famous congregation of hackers Anonymous, has received funds worth more than 55,000 dollars or 36,000 GBP and this is a part of the scheme to finance the setting up of the website for the collective. Though it may seem odd that such a well known hacktivist organization as Anonymous does not have its own official website, but the reason for this seems rooted in the organizational philosophy of the group itself.

Anonymous Going Mainstream Following Website Funding

This is because the Anonymous have always claimed to be completely democratic with no member of the group getting some special rights and all are equal. Moreover, they have reiterated time and again that they do not have a fixed hierarchical structure at all and that anyone can be a part of Anonymous as long as they want to be a voice against injustice and oppression.

 They do however use other channels on the internet to spread their word such as Pastebin , YouTube and of all these the most prominent is their twitter handle @YourAnonNews which contains all updates on their latest operations and activities. The twitter account, which is believed to be operated by a prominent member of the congregation, is now being used to make funds available for the development of a site devoted to the group’s activities. The account on Twitter, which was established in 2011, has now more than 1 million followers and has become a symbol of Anonymous even though the group has never claimed it to be their official channel after it started gaining much attention worldwide. However, now the group is making use of its popularity and internet power to generate funds.

The motive of this funding campaign is to provide the twitter handle @YourAnonymousNews with a website. The propagators of the twitter account have stated that the site will allow them “to collect breaking reports and blog postings from the best independent reporters online.

“We’ll provide feeds for citizen journalists who livestream events as they are taking place, instead of the 10-second sound bites provided by the corporate media.”

The persons behind the twitter handle have claimed that they are not related to the hacktivist organization in any manner, most people will take them to be the Anonymous themselves given the similarity in their style to the group.

The funds were arranged using crowd funding on the Indiegogo website. Though the initial target was set at a very modest $2000, with $3600 in server set up fees, the final collection turned out to be much higher than YAN had hoped for, with more than $55,000 dollars already being collected.

This truly shows the support of netizens for a movement like Anonymous and the way they are willing to help them in keeping their hacktivism going strong. However, there has been only a very sketchy description of how the monies are going to be used, so there is some uncertainty on the authenticity aspect. But it seems that netizens are all for Anonymous and their social activism.

Anonymous hackers launch massive cyber assault on Israel Cyberspace, #OpIsrael

Anonymous perpetrated a widespread attack on Israel for the second time and have threatened to wipe Israel from the cyberspace. The attacks are supposedly retaliation for the inhumane treatment of Palestinians at the hand of Israeli government. In fact a lot of the websites operated by the Israeli government were not accessible on Sunday.

Anonymous hackers launch massive cyber assault on Israel Cyberspace

The group had warned of the attack in a video pasted on YouTube and gave a message to the Israel government that “You have NOT stopped your endless human right violations. You have NOT stopped illegal settlements. You have NOT respected the ceasefire. You have shown that you do NOT respect international law.”

Moreover, the collective warned that on the 7^th of April, “elite cyber-squadrons from around the world have decided to unite in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel as one entity to disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace.” A group affiliated with the Anonymous calling themselves the N4m3le55 cr3w had stated on stated on Saturday that they have made all the preparations for a massive attack and that they “have gathered 600 websites and 100 plus servers we will be attacking” throughout Israel. The list includes banks, schools, businesses and a host of prominent government websites. “That is just our targets,”  and added that “We cannot speak on what the rest of Anonymous will be attacking but we can guarantee it will be in the 1000′s.”

The attacks fall on the eve of Holocaust Memorial day in Israel and Anonymous has accused the Israeli state of human rights violations, and ill treatment of its own people and neighboring countries.

Apparently the group claimed on Saturday to have brought down the sites of the Prime Minister’s office, the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel Securities Authority, and other sites such as the Education ministry and the defense ministry seem to have been affected as well though the government is ardently denying these claims.

The expert opinion on these attacks seems to be divided as some of them are taking these attacks as a serious threat and have advised preventive steps. But there are others who believe that the worst that the hackers can do is to carry out DDoS attacks, which are not really a big threat as such.

However, more than 700 websites have been affected and defaced in the cyber attacks.

Yitzhak ben Yisrael, of the National Cyber Bureau is of the opinion that the hackers have failed in their attempt to bring down major sites. He said that “So far it is as was expected, there is hardly any real damage,”. He also added that “Anonymous doesn’t have the skills to damage the country’s vital infrastructure. And if that was its intention, then it wouldn’t have announced the attack ahead of time. It wants to create noise in the media about issues that are close to its heart,”

Well, this is the second instance that Israel has been attacked by the Anonymous and even if the government is downplaying the damage done by the attack, it is commendable on part of Anonymous to have brought down a country which is well known for launching cyber attacks on other countries.

Barrett Brown’s Mother faces Prison

Anonymous hacktivist Barrett Brown’s Mother faces Prison for hiding Evidences

The legal troubles of Barrett Brown, the alleged spokesperson of the hacking collective Anonymous do not seem to be ending as of now. In fact, his mother is also bearing the brunt of his confrontation with the legal system. His mother Karen McCutchin has pleaded guilty to helping her son hide two computers which the FBI wished to seize during a raid on his house last year, and this can cost her a hefty sum as fine and a stint in prison.

Anonymous hacktivist Barrett Brown’s Mother faces Prison for hiding Evidences

It was during the last week that Karen McCutchin had accepted her offense of obstructing the execution of a search warrant and at present she is waiting to be sentenced. She could be sentenced with up to an year in prison and a fine of 100,000 dollars.

It all started on March 6, 2012 when the FBI performed the raid on the house of Barrett Brown in Dallas, Texas so as to uncover evidence and information about his affiliation with the hacking collective Anonymous and their offshoot LulzSec as he was closely linked to both the groups. The FBI wanted to investigate his personal website as he headed the Operation PM and was linked in the hacking of StratFor, a private intelligence agency from which data was stolen. He wasn’t in the house at the time of raid and he moved his computers to his mother’s house nearby. When he was asked by the investigators to hand over his equipment, he denied and then the officers came back with a search warrant for his mother’s house and seized all equipment.

Brown himself wrote about this raid the very next day “They told me that they’d executed a search warrant at my apartment and that the door had been broken in the process, and then asked me if I had any laptops with me here at my mom’s place that I wanted to give them. I responded in the negative, and they left,” “At any rate, the Feds came back a couple of hours later with a search warrant for my mom’s place – they fully intended to take a certain laptop, and did.” 

After this altercation, he wrote more about the inclination of the authorities to prosecute his mom. In fact this was the reason for his posting of a video on YouTube in which he threatened an FBI agent with dire action which led to more stringent charges against Brown when he was finally arrested in September last year. Brown is awaiting prosecution as of now as his hearing has been delayed till September which means that he will have spent a year in prison by then. He has been indicted on three charges and could face up to 100 years in prison.

However, during an interview for a magazine from behind the bars he has mentioned that he is not worried about his trial and he is hopeful that others will continue his crusade. But it is unfortunate that his mother is facing a harsh penalty as a result of his case.

Turkmenistan Gmail, Microsoft, Youtube Domains Hijacked

Iranian hackers deface multiple big companies Turkmenistan domains (.tm) yesterday using DNS poisoning attack.The defaces includes major sites of Google,Youtube,Orkut,Gmail,Intel,Xbox,etc. All those Hacked domains are registered at NIC  Turkmenistan. Hackers used SQL Injection Vulnerability to get the access to Database of NIC website.

The plain text passwords stored in the database makes very easy for hackers to access all the domain panels and changing  the DNS entries to shift websites on a rouge server with defaced page.

As usual the hackers uploaded a simple html page to show that the site has been defaced by them. The defaced message as shown below.

NIC Turkmenistan Domain Names Defaced

The defaced domain names include

• http://www.google.tm
• http://www.youtube.tm
• http://www.xbox.tm
• http://www.gmail.tm
• http://www.msdn.tm
• http://www.officexp.tm
• http://www.windowsvista.tm
• http://www.intel.tm
• http://www.orkut.tm

This is the first attack on NIC websites in 2013. Whatever it may be, but it points out strongly that still many of the websites having SQL vulnerabilities. The hackers have also got access to DNS records.

You can view the entire Data leak from here

http://ha.cker.ir/2013/01/data-leakage-from-nic-tm/

Mirrors of Defaced sites can be viewed here
 http://zone-h.com/archive/ip=198.105.216.250

http://append-hc.com/mirror/id/66204

Anonymous threatened Estonian government with a possible cyber attack

Anonymous Hackers AnonSwedenOp posted a video on YouTube on October 8 where it threatened the Estonian government with a possible cyber attack.

Anonymous threatened Estonian government with a possible cyber attack

“Estonian government had sacrificed its own people instead of helping its own people, Estonian government has channelled money to helping Greece that is much better off.”

“Estonia says that it doesn’t have money but then they give 357 million to Greece,” the statement declares.

Anonymous Group will most probably attack on Friday, October 12, according to video and this attack will go as Operation #OpEstonia.

The the end of the Video, Hacker with the promise: “This must end. Estonian people, we haven’t forgotten you”.

Anonymous Hacker last week took down the website of Swedish central bank also and this attack can also be on high rate, if they get possible massive number of attacks.

 

Cyber attack on Iran’s Internet system Disrupts Iran Internet

IRAN state official has said that Cyber attackers have targeted Iranian infrastructure and communications companies, disrupting the Internet across the country. “Yesterday we had a heavy attack against the country’s infrastructure and communications companies which has forced us to limit the Internet,”

Iran the world’s no. 5 oil exporter, has tightened cyber security since its uranium enrichment centrifuges were hit in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which Tehran believes was planted by arch-adversaries Israel or the United States. Last week, the Islamic republic cut citizens’ access to Gmail and the secure version of Google Search. Gmail has since been restored.

Cyber attack on Iran’s Internet system Disrupts Iran Internet

Since sites such as Youtube and Facebook were used to organise mass anti-government protests against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 2009, the Iranian government has maintained one of the world’s largest internet filters, blocking access to thousands of sites and IP addresses. Yet still the hackers find a way in.

“Presently we have constant cyber attacks in the country. Yesterday an attack with a traffic of several gigabytes hit the Internet infrastructure, which caused an unwanted slowness in the country’s Internet,” he said.

“All of these attacks have been organised. And they have in mind the country’s nuclear, oil, and information networks.”

Last April, Iran revealed that a computer Trojan was detected inside the control systems of its vast terminal responsible for the country’s crude oil exports. There was no reported operational disruption on the facility at that time.

Last month a commander in the elite Revolutionary Guard announced that Iran is ready to defend itself against any form of cyber war, as the country deems it more of a threat than a physical attack. Clearly they were not as ready as they thought.

Iran claims that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, but Israel, the United States and other Western powers suspect that the country has ambitions for a nuclear bomb.