Anonymous: Who Are the Shadowy Hackers Taking on Russia?
5
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By
SPYSCAPE
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“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Who are the Anonymous hackers?
Cyber wars are a battle in the shadows and - in the case of Anonymous hackers - at a café or the kitchen table with Twitter doubling as an unofficial press office. When Ukraine’s government called for a volunteer ‘IT Army’ to launch cyberattacks against Russia, an estimated 50 groups - 400,000 hackers - heeded Ukraine’s call. Anonymous was the first to pledge their solidarity on Twitter.
"It should be worrisome to the Russians for sure,” said Kevin McDonald, a SPYEX consultant and expert in cybersecurity. “Anonymous is a self-defined group, loosely formed and not under the control of any central authority. This decentralization, their anonymity, unknown numbers, and some seriously talented and well-connected operators are what makes them potentially dangerous.”
My experience with Anonymous started by accident. I was playing Tetris online with a friend when she mentioned something called Operation Payback. Anonymous were attacking PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard for blocking payments to WikiLeaks. I entered a chat room on a server called 'AnonOps' and used my real name, quickly realizing this was a huge mistake, I changed it.
After watching, analyzing, and absorbing, I decided to chime in about a month later. This began my involvement in operations such as Op Tunisia and Op Egypt, which were designed to support protesters on the street during the Arab Spring. I became involved in writing press releases, defacing pages of government websites, and organizing operations themselves. I became better known for these skills in the Anonymous community and began being invited into more secretive, closed-off groups. After a few of my exploits became a little too public for my liking, I took more of a backseat.
A few months later, myself and a few others founded LulzSec, a group designed to mock online security as a whole. Our style was cheeky and childlike. The point was the situation was so grim that even we could wreak havoc. Hacking is not just limited to shady intelligence agencies and organized groups. This gained global media attention, hundreds of thousands of social media followers, and - while an interesting part of my life - it was also the most unhealthy, paranoia-inducing, and chaotic, leading to a real breakdown of my mental health as a whole. Ultimately, I was arrested for my involvement in Anonymous/LulzSec, which you can read more about in the SPYSCAPE museum.
Anonymous: Who Are the Shadowy Hackers Taking on Russia?
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“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting,” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
Who are the Anonymous hackers?
Cyber wars are a battle in the shadows and - in the case of Anonymous hackers - at a café or the kitchen table with Twitter doubling as an unofficial press office. When Ukraine’s government called for a volunteer ‘IT Army’ to launch cyberattacks against Russia, an estimated 50 groups - 400,000 hackers - heeded Ukraine’s call. Anonymous was the first to pledge their solidarity on Twitter.
"It should be worrisome to the Russians for sure,” said Kevin McDonald, a SPYEX consultant and expert in cybersecurity. “Anonymous is a self-defined group, loosely formed and not under the control of any central authority. This decentralization, their anonymity, unknown numbers, and some seriously talented and well-connected operators are what makes them potentially dangerous.”
An Anonymous spokesperson describes the collective of online vigilantes as: "An amorphous idea. It flows like air, like water, like everything.” The head of Russia’s Space Agency calls them “scammers and petty swindlers”.
Anonymous is a global hacking collective that states it is everyone and no one. Legion. A hive mind. A disparate group located in the US and abroad that undertake cyber ‘operations’ against individuals, companies, and governments they consider hostile and offer ‘support’ to those they favor including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Taiwan in its struggle with China, and Ukraine in its battle with Russia.
It’s best to think of Anonymous as a series of hacking operations such as Op Egypt, Op Payback, and Op Newblood rather than as a group that shares one philosophy or goal.
Anonymous unmasked
‘Anons’, as they’re known, don’t often reveal their identities, although court convictions over the years have ripped off the smirking masks of several members including New Yorker Hector Xavier Monsegur - known as ‘Sabu’ - who was part of Operation Payback, a major attack that disrupted PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa among others. The hacks cost banks and the Britishmusic industry $5.6m.
Monsegur, viewed online as the sly mastermind of audacious attacks, was arrested in his Manhattan housing authority apartment where he dabbled in drug sales. The New York Times dubbed him ‘the party boy of the projects’. Facing more than 25 years in prison, he turned FBI informant, identified other ‘Anons’, and laid out the collective’s inner workings. He was sentenced to seven months' time served.
Master hacker 'Sabu' targeted the US Senate and governments of Yemen & Zimbabwe
Anonymous members
Chicago’s Jeremy Hammond, aka ‘Anarchaos’ was a member of Anonymous offshoot AntiSec and, at one point, the FBI’s most-wanted cybercriminal. He was sentenced to 10 years for hacking a company whose clients included Homeland Security and the US Department of Defense.
Matthew Keys, a former Reuters social media editor, was sentenced to two years in 2016 for helping Anonymous break into The Los Angeles Times. He was back in court in 2021 and sentenced to another six months for hacking into and deleting the YouTube account of the Sacramento business magazine where he worked.
Jake ‘Topiary’ Davis, a high-school drop-out at 13, lived alone in the Shetland Islands off Scotland. He ran the Anonymous Twitter account and defaced websites during the 2011 Arab Spring: “I went from just lurking to cracking jokes, to writing and I ended up accidentally writing ‘deface’ pages for the Libyan, Egyptian, and Zimbabwean governments.” Davis pleaded guilty at age 19 for attacks on Web sites run by Sony and the Arizona State Police, among others, and was sentenced to two years.
The rise of Anonymous
The international hacktivists coalition grew out of the chaotic 4chan online messaging board in 2003 with the goal of internet transparency and boasts about brazen hacks on governments, companies, and spy agencies.
Anonymous members claim to have temporarily shut down the CIA website, hacked a phone call about cybercrime between the FBI and Britain’s Scotland Yard, and taken down Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) website at the start of the 2022 Ukraine conflict. The coalition has posted documents apparently stolen from NATO computers and may have been behind the crash of Interpol’s website after it announced the arrest of 25 Anonymous members in Argentina, Spain, and beyond.
Some thought that the FBI had crushed Anonymous after Monsegur’s conviction in 2014 and cooperation with the Bureau - the number of hacking operations dropped from 75 Anonymous ops between 2011-13 to only three ops in 2014 - but, like Whac-A-Moles, Anonymous hackers keep popping up.
Guy Fawkes masks signed by well-known hackers, part of the exhibit at SPYSCAPE’s New York HQ
Modus operandi
The hackers have used DDoS attacks and doxing to disable government sites, vandalize commercial websites, and target high-profile political figures - all without leaving the house.
Their symbol is the Guy Fawkes mask, a nod to anarchy as Fawkes tried to blow up the British Houses of Parliament in 1605. The mask was also worn by a character in the comic strip V for Vendetta, and has a symbolic as well as a practical purpose.
Anonymous published a list of protest instructions for a march, including: "Cover your face. This will prevent your identification from videos taken by hostiles, other protesters or security".
The power of Anonymous
Anonymous operations have often had political ties ranging from an attack on the Mexican Army website in 2013 to Operation Hong Kong in 2014, and pro-Taiwan hacks in 2020 when Anonymous claimed responsibility for a hack on the UN's website. Hackers created a page for Taiwan - which has not had a UN seat since 1971 - and, for 12 hours, the page featured a Republic of China flag, a Taiwan Independence flag, the Anonymous logo, and YouTube videos.
The merging of Anonymous cyberattacks with a ground war in Ukraine has thrust the group into unchartered territory, waging a cyber war against a nuclear superpower.
The collective announced it had hacked Russian-controlled TV to show Ukraine war footage; disrupted streaming services Wink and Ivi (Russian versions of Netflix); and that an affiliated group had shut down Russia's space agency so Putin'no longer has control over spy satellites'.
The head of Roscosmos Control Center, where the space agency server was allegedly shut down, fired back on Twitter to deny Anonymous’ claim: “The information of these scammers and petty swindlers is not true.”
Who’s right? Who knows.It seems that in cyber war, as in real-life boots-on-the-ground conflicts, the first casualty of war is often truth.
My experience with Anonymous started by accident. I was playing Tetris online with a friend when she mentioned something called Operation Payback. Anonymous were attacking PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard for blocking payments to WikiLeaks. I entered a chat room on a server called 'AnonOps' and used my real name, quickly realizing this was a huge mistake, I changed it.
After watching, analyzing, and absorbing, I decided to chime in about a month later. This began my involvement in operations such as Op Tunisia and Op Egypt, which were designed to support protesters on the street during the Arab Spring. I became involved in writing press releases, defacing pages of government websites, and organizing operations themselves. I became better known for these skills in the Anonymous community and began being invited into more secretive, closed-off groups. After a few of my exploits became a little too public for my liking, I took more of a backseat.
A few months later, myself and a few others founded LulzSec, a group designed to mock online security as a whole. Our style was cheeky and childlike. The point was the situation was so grim that even we could wreak havoc. Hacking is not just limited to shady intelligence agencies and organized groups. This gained global media attention, hundreds of thousands of social media followers, and - while an interesting part of my life - it was also the most unhealthy, paranoia-inducing, and chaotic, leading to a real breakdown of my mental health as a whole. Ultimately, I was arrested for my involvement in Anonymous/LulzSec, which you can read more about in the SPYSCAPE museum.
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