Anonymous strikes against FBI security firm

Anonymous, the hacker group known for targeting companies that refused to process payments for WikiLeaks, has attacked an American security firm that has been assisting the FBI.

In response to HBGary Federal’s proclamation that it knew who the leaders of Anonymous were, the hacker group stole thousands of private emails and took over the website with a letter explaining everything.

“You brought this upon yourself. You’ve tried to bit at the Anonymous hand, and now the Anonymous hand is bitch-slapping you in the face,” said the letter.

The group also accuses the HBGary of wanting public attention, releasing part of an email attributed to CEO Aaron Barr.

“But its not about them…its about our audience having the right impression of our capability and the competency of our research. Anonymous will do what every they can to discredit that, and they have the mic so to speak because they are on Al Jazeera, ABC, CNN, etc. I am going to keep up the debate because I think it is good business but I will be smart about my public responses.”

All of the 60,00 emails stolen from HBGary were posted as a Torrent on The Pirate Bay.

As well as hacking the site, Aaron Barr’s Twitter account was hacked and several messages were posted, along with his home address, social security number and cell phone. The image posted on the Sophos blog shows one of the Twitter messages: “Today we taught everyone a lesson. When we actually decide to bite back against those who try to bring us down, we bit back hard.”

This attack marks a change in tactics for Anonymous, which had previously relied on Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks to interrupt the services of financial institutions. This attack is different, as it involved skilfully hacking into HBGary’s systems. HBGary is understandably upset by the attack.

“Before this, what these guys were doing was technically illegal, but it was in direct support of a government whistle blower. But now, we have a situation where they’re committing a federal crime, stealing private data and posting it on a torrent,” Greg Hoglund, co-founder of HBGary, said to Krebonsecuirty. “They didn’t just pick on any company, but we try to protect the US government from hackers. They couldn’t have chosen a worse company to pick on.”

For the time being, it would appear as though Anonymous has won the first round.

“It would appear that security experts are not expertly secured,” said Anonymous.