LulzSec threatens governments
Hacking group LulzSec might be plotting the most damaging of their cyber attacks yet. A tweet from the organization on Monday reads that the group is looking to infiltrate government servers.
"Government hacking is taking place right now, behind the scenes," reads the tweet. Last week the group successfully (yet temporarily) shut down the website for the CIA and posted data it lifted from the US Senate’s site. While the initiative against the CIA wasn’t an actual hack but a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, hard hacking the government could be detrimental to the security of the state.LulzSec has confirmed that it is capable of more than what they unleashed on the CIA, writing that “DDoS is of course our least powerful and most abundant ammunition.” They took to the website Pastebin on Monday morning to post a call-for-action for other hacktivists to take on the government alongside them. “Welcome to Operation Anti-Security (#AntiSec) – we encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path,” reads the post. “We fully endorse the flaunting of the word "AntiSec" on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art. We encourage you to spread the word of AntiSec far and wide, for it will be remembered.Members of LulzSec add that they are now teaming up with the hacking collective Anonymous — from which it branched off of — “to increase efforts.”"Top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood."In addition to already infiltrating the CIA and Senate sites, LulzSec received added publicity after earlier hacking Sony Corp and a software company. Recently they also published thousands of email addresses and passwords registered to subscribers of a porn site. LulzSec has responded that they “release personal data so that equally evil people can entertain us with what they do with it.” On their official site they write that "You find it funny to watch havoc unfold, and we find it funny to cause it." The publishing of classified government material, however — a criminal offense — might cause more worry than laughter. Speaking to Reuters, Bruce Schneier, a security technologist that studies cyber attacks, doesn’t think much will come from the recent threats."They're not going to do any damage. They're just out having fun…they'll probably never be tracked down," he says.Meanwhile, some skeptics are considering that, as the identity of LulzSec affiliates remain unpublicized, perhaps the membership is made up of insiders pushing for Internet regulations in the House. A report on Infowars.com reads that, “Nobody really knows who LulzSec is. It is, however, rather suspicious that the group has increased its hacking activities during a period when a number of cybersecurity bills are marching through Congress.”With Congress only recently beginning to turn attention towards restricting the web, some believe that LulzSec operatives may be undercover lobbyists of sorts. By exposing a lack of security — even in the guise as an elite hacking community — politicians may become fearful and clamp down on the Web.In the meantime, assume that nothing on the web is safe — especially not your porno passwords.
