{"id":21351,"date":"2013-01-18T10:35:21","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T18:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.mcafee.com\/?p=21351"},"modified":"2025-06-06T01:35:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T08:35:51","slug":"the-future-of-hacktivism-and-anonymous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/other-blogs\/mcafee-labs\/the-future-of-hacktivism-and-anonymous\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Hacktivism and Anonymous"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the publication of the 2013 Threats Predictions<\/em> from McAfee Labs, I have received many queries regarding our expectation of a possible slowdown in Anonymous activity this year. Some readers agreed, while others were more skeptical. With this blog, I will attempt to explain these positions.<\/p>\n

The Anonymous signature<\/span><\/h2>\n

Today, many people use the Anonymous banner. It is more and more difficult to identify the true actors of this brand of hacktivism. In the following image (which appears to be from a French maker of false papers: \u201ccertified counterfeiter\/fake document wholesaler\u201d), we see the Anonymous logo used by cybercriminals.<\/p>\n

“Anonymous” also appeared with a bomb threat on November 5, 2012. Last February, we saw an attempt to extort US$50,000 from Symantec by Yamatough, a hacker claiming sympathy for Anonymous and Antisec. Some researchers were very suspicious regarding the real motivation.<\/p>\n

Consequently, some researchers claim Anonymous is now an universal banner for all kind of campaigns to misinform and brainwash, and with its image damaged its notoriety will decline. On the other hand, other researchers say that with #OpWCIT, #WBC, #SandyShooting, and #AaronSwartz, Anonymous has become even more visible.<\/p>\n

Disinformation?<\/span><\/h2>\n

In 2012 we noted various alleged Anonymous operations that were not just unclear but fake. On November 5t Anonymous threatened Facebook and Zynga; nothing serious occurred. In September, a tweet claimed attack responsibility after GoDaddy was unable to serve millions of websites hosted on its servers. The failure was in fact caused by a series of internal network events that corrupted router data tables. The same month, Antisec claimed to have stolen 12 million Apple device identifiers from a computer of an FBI agent. In fact, this data came from the app-publishing company BlueToad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some say Anonymous is eroding its credibility with such efforts. For example, they point the finger at @AnonymousOwn3r, who likes to spread such misinformation. Others are more cautious, wondering, for example, if they can believe BlueToad.<\/p>\n

Confused or uncoordinated actions?<\/span><\/h2>\n

December was announced as the month of a leak of \u201can unprecedented amount\u201d of data (Project Mayhem). In the fourth quarter, YouTube became saturated with hundreds of Project Mayhem’s call-to-action videos, mainly appealing to those who wanted to expose corruption and\/or to support the hacktivist cause. As reported by the Examiner.com<\/a>, it may be hard to determine who is associated with the Anonymous group or any other “establishment”-related entities set up solely to gather information on participants and to entrap those who are actively leaking information. Leaked data were said to be available via TYLER, a Wikipedia style peer-to-peer network reachable after the installation of some dedicated software. Today, it is difficult to measure the significance of this platform.<\/p>\n

The lack of results is sometimes considered detrimental to the Anonymous reputation and its image. Many uncoordinated operations such as DDoS are launched for just one day but never succeed over the long term. (The targeted companies recover within a day.) Yet the other side will say these are uncoordinated efforts for certain ops but that doesn’t mean Anonymous is in decline.<\/p>\n

Too many script kiddies and opportunists?<\/span><\/h2>\n

We also noted some thought-provoking arrests in 2012:<\/p>\n