On Tuesday, March 6, 2012, law enforcement agents arrested top members of the infamous international computer hacking group Lulz Security (“LulzSec”).
LulzSec has claimed responsibility for hacking into computers used by the entertainment industry, credit card companies, intelligence firms and federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI.
Anonymous – an offshoot of LulzSec – is believed to have caused billions of dollars in damage to governments, international banks and corporations. The U.S. Government has identified Hector Xavier Monsegur as the leader of this group.
Monsegur – working under the alias “Sabu” – allegedly commanded Anonymous from his nerve center in a public housing project on New York’s Lower East Side.
In August 2011, Monsegur pled guilty to computer hacking and aggravated identify theft. Monsegur’s cooperation with the FBI – part of his plea deal – led to the arrest of LulzSec’s lead members. Such members include two men from Great Britain, two from Ireland and an American from Chicago.
The FBI dubbed the arrests as “devastating to the organization” and claims to have “chopp[ed] off the head of LulzSec.”
The five charged in the LulzSec conspiracy indictment expected to be unsealed were identified by sources as: Ryan Ackroyd, aka “Kayla” and Jake Davis, aka “Topiary,” both of London; Darren Martyn, aka “pwnsauce” and Donncha O’Cearrbhail, aka “palladium,” both of Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond aka “Anarchaos,” of Chicago.
Believed to have been the main person behind the December hack on Statfor (a private company providing geopolitical analysis to governments and others), Hammond was arrested on access device fraud and hacking charges. During the hack on Statfor, millions of emails were stolen and then published on Wikileaks. Credit card numbers and other confidential information were also stolen.
Barrett Brown – who has spoken on behalf of Anonymous in past attacks – said the arrests would not slow down the Anonymous movement. Additionally, Brown said that Anonymous hired an army of lawyers last January and is “prepared for a big slug-out.”
For more information please see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/technology/lulzsec-hacking-suspects-are-arrested.html
While somewhat alarming, I do not find these activities nearly as threatened by these so-called “hacktivists” so much as China’s 30-strong commando unit of cyberwarriors called the “Blue Army.” LulzSec and Anonymous operate under a decentralized, largely leaderless model (with a hacker living in his late grandmother’s apartment in a public-housing project), supporting “an ever-shifting variety of causes,” and largely attempting to wreak havoc with authorities. Meanwhile, with an official People’s Liberation Army news report attesting to “tens of millions” being spent on its highly coordinated and military training network. More than a quarter of all attempts to steal sensitive corporate data originates in China; Western intelligence believes that many of these attacks are carried out by hackers who have links to the PLA or the Chinese Government. Sources throughout the internet security industry have long believed that Chinese-based hackers are the single largest source of worldwide cyberattacks.
I anticipate these types of criminal investigations and indictments to rise significantly in the coming years. It is important for the governments of the world to seek these hacking groups out and come down hard on them. I believe the FBI’s confidence in the impact and hindrance the arrest of the leaders will have on the hacking group is overstated and aimed more towards signaling a public victory. Hacking groups able to infiltrate government systems innately have a high degree of coordination and intelligence, otherwise they would not be able to accomplish their objectives. Furthermore, hacking is a skill, and it is likely that others within the organization still have the skills to continue the criminal activities of the group. Hacking is a serious issue in a world that is so reliant on technology as evidenced by the billions of dollars Lulzsec has cost governments. This is precisely why the international community needs to attack this criminal activity to deter others from forming such groups in the future.
I certainly commend the federal government for the arrest of top members of LulzSec. As the post states, LulzSec was potentially committing serious crimes by hacking into computer networks / systems used by the entertainment industry, credit card companies, intelligence firms, and the FBI. Obviously, these are actions that need to be prosecuted. However, while the FBI claims that these arrests are “devastating to the organization” and that “we’re chopping off the head of LulzSec,” I wonder what affect this will have on the Anonymous movement as a whole. Even though experts are saying that Anonymous now faces a period of reflection in which its members must question who they can possibly trust, I see this as a sign that Anonymous will simply become much more cautious in their activities. I feel Anonymous will continue to “fight” to carry out its message. The movement has spawned numerous spinoffs, and not long after the LulzSec arrests, countless members of Anonymous took to Twitter to tell the world that the movement will not die. One could analogize the nature of this “network” of individual hacker groups to those of terrorist organizations, in which they are united behind a common message, and once one of the organizations is wiped out, another simply replaces it, ready to achieve the collectives’ goal.
See: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/hackers-lash-out-at-lulzsec-leader-turned-snitch/?ref=technology