Anonymous hackers attack US security firm HBGary

[DorsetBoy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12380987

Online activist group Anonymous has targeted an American security firm that claimed to know the identities of its leaders.

The secretive organisation is being investigated in several countries over strikes on Visa, PayPal and others.

Over the weekend Aaron Barr, head of HBGary Federal, said he had discovered the names of its most senior figures.

The group retaliated overnight by breaking into the company's website and hijacking his Twitter account.


Anonymous, known for being a loosely-knit group, has been involved in a number of high profile online protests and attacks in recent months.

In December, the group launched a campaign in support of Wikileaks that disrupted services at MasterCard, Visa and other companies that had withdrawn support the whistle-blowing website.

The strike led to police investigations around the world, and a number of arrests in Britain and the Netherlands....... (more)

It never pays to make loud noises about Crackers/hackers, this is what happens and you would have thought the head of an "expert" company like that would have known better. It also shows this security experts systems were not very secure .

[Gary]

No system is impervious, there are always weaknesses we do not hear about that the Black Hat community does...

[zappaDPJ]

This is what Anonymous put up on the HBGary website: http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/2294/internetsanon.jpg

[Technical Ben]

What is so strange is the "Anonymous" seem to play out just as the fictional group called The Laughing Man.
I wonder if the people involved are just imitating books, films and games?

[drummer]

What is so strange is the "Anonymous" seem to play out just as the fictional group called The Laughing Man.
I wonder if the people involved are just imitating books, films and games?

Quite the opposite actually.

The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex movies are based on what has actually been happening on the interwebs for a couple of decades.

They're also about human parts being replaced by robotic equivalents but that's a different discussion.

Groups similar to Anonymous were around long before the first GITS manga and movies appeared on the scene.

[Technical Ben]

Never knew of the previous hackers. As I was not on the net then.  
PS "G.I.T.S." is an unfortunate acronym. GTS would be better.