Al Jazeera – 2012-02-11 13:54:29
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/02/2012210205218401882.html
Anonymous ‘Takes Down’ CIA Website
Al Jazeera
(February 11, 2012) — Hackers have claimed responsibility for disabling the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) website — the latest attack on a US federal agency. The website was inaccessible for several hours on Friday evening, after cyber activists claimed to have knocked it offline on a Twitter feed under the banner of the Anonymous group.
“CIA Tango down,” a member of Anonymous said on @YourAnonNews, a Twitter feed used by the group. “Tango down” is an expression used by the US Special Forces when they have killed an enemy.
The CIA website at cia.gov was offline at the time of writing, and a spokesperson said the intelligence agency was looking into the reports. “We are aware of the problems accessing our website, and are working to resolve them,” she said. The website was restored shortly thereafter.
Frequent Attacks
Anonymous last month briefly disabled the websites of the US justice department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation offline using distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), a common technique used by the collective where multiple sources bombard the target website. There was no immediate explanation from Anonymous for the targeting of the CIA site.
It also released a recording of a telephone call between policing agencies of numerous countries discussing their hacking activities. [See next story.] Those attacks were in retaliation for the US shutdown of file-sharing site Megaupload.
Most Anonymous cyber attacks are distributed denial-of-service attacks in which a large number of computers are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming its servers.
Hacker Group Anonymous Publicizes FBI Call
Al Jazeera
(February 3, 2012) — Hacker group Anonymous has released a recording of what appears to be a conference call between the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Scotland Yard held last month to discuss operations against the group.
The audio of the nearly 17-minute conference call was posted on YouTube along with an email invitation from an FBI agent setting up the call for January 17. The FBI did not immediately return phone calls or emails asking about the Anonymous claim. A spokesman for Scotland Yard told the AFP news agency: “We are looking into the reports.”
The email invites members of European law enforcement agencies to take part in a conference call “to discuss the on-going investigations related to Anonymous, Lulzsec, Antisec, and other associated splinter groups”. The email, with details for accessing the call, was sent to law enforcement officials in Britain, France, the Netherlands and others. The only people who identify themselves on the call are from the FBI and Scotland Yard.
In a message on Twitter, Anonymous posted links to the audio recording and said the FBI “might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now”.
At various times during the call, the British and US participants mention Jake Davis and Ryan Cleary, two British teenagers who were arrested last year over hacking. Davis is charged with hacking into websites, including that of Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, which was out of service for several hours on June 20 after apparently being targeted. Cleary was detained in connection with a month-long global rampage last year by the Anonymous splinter group Lulz Security.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
