News

Hacker Groups Announce Plans for Government and Corporate Breaches

• By Kevin McCaney
• 06/20/2011

Two infamous hacker groups, LulzSec and Anonymous, have released a statement that it will be targeting government and large corporation Web sites for the sole purpose of obtaining classified and private information. It also calls individuals to join in on the attacks.

LulzSec announced what it's calling Operation Anti-Security in a statement June 19 that employed a metaphor of naval warfare on the "Internet ocean."

"We encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path," the statement read. "We fully endorse the flaunting of the word 'AntiSec' on any government Web site defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered."

To date, LulzSec and Anonymous have appeared to operate independently of each other, but LulzSec's statement said it is teaming up with Anonymous for AntiSec, and Anonymous confirmed the alliance via Twitter.

LulzSec and Anonymous have attracted attention recently for a series of attacks on government Web sites, including LulzSec's hacks of the Senate, CIA and the Atlanta chapter of the FBI-affiliated InfraGard, as well as on commercial sites.

Anonymous also has carried out attacks on foreign government Web sites, resulting in 32 members of Anonymous being arrested in Turkey and three arrested in Spain. Sony also has claimed that a distributed denial-of-service attack by Anonymous contributed to a hack of its PlayStation Network that netted personal information of more than 100 million users and shut down the network for an extended stretch. 

Despite its successful attacks on government Web sites, LulzSec's efforts so far have seemed fairly benign and have mostly been intended to expose lax security on those sites without doing any real damage. But that could change, according to its statement.

"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including e-mail spools and documentation," according to the statement. "Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments."

Even relatively harmless attacks are worrisome to security experts, however, because they underscore an advantage attackers have over network defenses. Charles Dodd, chief technology officer at Nicor Global, told GCN's William Jackson that "It might be benign, but it shows they have no fear of anyone coming after them. These guys are making a very powerful statement to the rest of the world."