Inside Anonymous: the "hacktivists" in their own words

Their cyber attacks on governments and corporations have seen the loose collective of hackers known only as “Anonymous” pass from obscurity to becoming the byword for online guerrilla warfare. Nevertheless, the group has remained an enigma. Today though, in a series of interviews, Anonymous members speak out, promising to step up their campaign of attacks and revealing that they have hacked Whitehall websites. They speak of ambitions on the part of some of their number to hack British police servers and also of fears for their own futures, because of the widespread infiltration of cyber hackers by security services. Anonymous has already hit the likes of MasterCard and Paypal but its list of possible targets is huge, members say. One promises future hacks that are “large and impressive”. Another said members had been discussing how to breach the UK’s Police National Computer (PNC), which contains details of crimes, to “delete a few user records”. He said there are users of the site’s chatrooms currently doing “a lot of research on this, seeing if there are any possibilities”. But, because the PNC is “not connected to the internet, as such”, he described talk of an attack as “just a joke” for the time being. The member, who helps run one of the group’s websites, added that – because of Anonymous’ “leaderless structure” – which target will be next is entirely “up to the users”. Pointing out that not all hacks are malicious, one lone hacker with links to Anonymous – known online as “Pr0f” – said that he had broken into the Department for Transport’s (DfT’s) servers: “I got access to an English .gov server, but I left it untouched and stole no data. I managed to gain access to the databases on the server, which included a list of users and administrators, with emails, usernames, hashed passwords, and names and addresses and so on.” Those details belonged to several hundred DfT staff and members of the public, he said. “I had no issue with them. It was really just because I noticed a potential vulnerability and decided to see if it was exploitable.” The hacker left a message with the department and that particular security loop has since been closed. “[Hacking is] a little bit of showing off and embarrassment,” said Pr0f. He recently claimed to have carried out an attack on the sites of the governments of Dubai and Iran and said that, for the most part, his intention is to draw attention to his targets’ lack of security. “With attacks like Stuxnet and various other cyberwar-related events becoming more popular over the last few years, well, there are a lot of people who don’t care about avoiding harming people,” said Pr0f. He added: “Because of the nature of [my] Dubai hack, I ensured that all of those passwords were no longer in use. I will go to lengths to ensure I don’t risk harm to anyone. I feel that full disclosure of names, addresses, and other personal details is usually totally unnecessary. Username:Password serves just as effectively.” Pr0f is still unsure what his next target will be – or he is unwilling to say. “I will probably give Dubai a rest, let them lick their wounds,” he said, adding that there are “an awful lot of countries out there that rule their citizens in a totalitarian manner”. In his experience, companies are “generally less secure” and, therefore, easier targets. “But I think there are quite a few governments in Africa and the Middle East that need a wake-up call,” he said. Anonymous members are notoriously security conscious. Interviews are rare and personal details off-limits. Journalists are sometimes asked to verify their own identities before interviews are granted and members only ever speak under cover of a pseudonym, most agreeing only to be quoted as “Anonymous”. The Obama administration warned late last month that the USA would consider hacking on the part of a foreign country “an act of war” and some hackers expressed concern for their own futures. “I am very cautious. I would not like to be under [security agencies’] scrutiny,” said Pr0f. But he insisted he was not scared of being prosecuted because “while I have committed crimes, I feel that if I get caught, then that’s fair”, adding that he sees himself as a martyr to his cause. Other members said they are “sure” that, because of its open nature, their network is infiltrated by police and security services. One hacker, who was heavily involved in the attacks on the banks who blacklisted WikiLeaks in the wake of the diplomatic cables furore, admitted that he gets concerned “especially every time some group tries to dox me” (publish personal details online). He said: “It’s not that the dox are accurate, so much as getting that much attention isn’t conducive to staying out of the Government’s crosshairs.” A colleague claimed he was raided by the FBI and had equipment confiscated. He said he would term many Anonymous members “innocents” because “they hear about us on the news and join to be part of it. Many take no action themselves but are here in support because they believe in the reasons why Anonymous does some of the things they do”. Anonymous has always insisted – much to the confusion of media and public alike – that its membership is informal and those running the group’s sites are not always aware of the actions of members, who may be acting as individuals or as members of sub-groups. Membership can be anything from expressing support for the movement to hacking a large multinational organisation – or anything in between. One member explained that people within the group choose which things interest them and join those operations only. “AnonOps (used for planning Anonymous operations) is run by a small group of operators. In that sense they ‘control’ things but far more control is exerted by the Channel operators in the different operations,” he said. Individual members have their own methods and motivations for hacking. Some will simply bombard the target’s server with requests for information, stopping bona fide users accessing the site. Others choose to deface a site, while there are those who choose to release often highly sensitive data stolen from its databases. Because of its notoriety, the group’s name has become synonymous with “hacktivism”. The first reaction of many on hearing of the attacks on PSN was to assume it was the work of Anonymous, a theory apparently given weight when a file said to have been planted by the group turned up on Sony’s servers. But there are myriad other groups, most notably Lulz Security, who claim to have carried out multiple attacks on Sony as well as on the PBS and Fox News websites. Anonymous members have always been at pains to insist that the original Sony hack – the biggest ever online consumer data breach – was nothing to do with it. But the group admits that, because of the its informal structure, it cannot rule out the possibility that the hack was carried out by a member acting without the authority of the organisation. Anonymous itself has faced accusations that it acts as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in selecting targets which meet with its disapproval. But members rejected the notion, saying: “just because people have negative perceptions of us doesn’t mean our opinions are suddenly invalidated. If we feel something is wrong, we do what we can to fix it.”