'Anonymous' Hacker Group Teaches Shady Cyber-Security Companies a Lesson They'll Never Forget | Media. Legal briefs: Accusations fly over U.S. Chamber of Commerce tactics. One of the groups targeted by the law firm Hunton & Williams in an effort to discredit critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has made good on its threat to file a disciplinary complaint with the District of Columbia Bar.
Kevin Zeese, an attorney with StopTheChamber.com, on Wednesday, Feb. 23, sent a 14-page letter to the Office of Bar Counsel that accuses Hunton & Williams attorneys John W. Woods, Richard L. Wyatt and Robert T. "It's kind of amazing a firm like Hunton & Williams would talk about violations of cyber law, forgery, blackmail, libel, slander . . . these lawyers need to be appropriately disciplined for that," Zeese said in an interview. The District's Office of Bar Counsel, which receives about 1,500 disciplinary complaints each year, does not confirm the existence or status of an inquiry in its initial stages.
Calls to the Hunton & Williams attorneys were referred to the firm's media representative, who declined to comment on the matter. Forbes - Barr Speaks Out. Ars technica - The inside story of the hack. It has been an embarrassing week for security firm HBGary and its HBGary Federal offshoot. HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr thought he had unmasked the hacker hordes of Anonymous and was preparing to name and shame those responsible for co-ordinating the group's actions, including the denial-of-service attacks that hit MasterCard, Visa, and other perceived enemies of WikiLeaks late last year. When Barr told one of those he believed to be an Anonymous ringleader about his forthcoming exposé, the Anonymous response was swift and humiliating. HBGary's servers were broken into, its e-mails pillaged and published to the world, its data destroyed, and its website defaced.
As an added bonus, a second site owned and operated by Greg Hoglund, owner of HBGary, was taken offline and the user registration database published. Anonymous: more than kids HBGary and HBGary Federal position themselves as experts in computer security. Time for an injection. "Anonymous" hackers take out HBGary, pilfer sensitive emails. SearchSecurity.com Staff Published: 07 Feb 2011 The group known as "Anonymous," which is tied to attacks on U.S. companies denying funds to WikiLeaks, has taken down security vendor HBGary Federal and stolen research SearchSecurity.com members gain immediate and unlimited access to breaking industry news, virus alerts, new hacker threats, highly focused security newsletters, and more -- all at no cost.
Join me on SearchSecurity.com today! And other data associated with HBGary co-founder and malware expert Greg Hoglund. HBGary Federal was spun-off of HBGary Inc. in late 2009. The new firm, made up of former Northrup Grumman employees and military veterans, provides classified services to the Department of Defense, the intelligence community and other U.S. government agencies. The firm has reportedly been helping federal investigators identify and infiltrate members of "Anonymous. " HBGary founder Greg Hoglund said the group showed much more prowess in the latest attack against his firm. HBGary emails out Morgan Stanley as Aurora victim - SC Magazine US. March 01, 2011 Chinese hackers that attacked systems at Google and Adobe also infiltrated global financial services firm Morgan Stanley, according to internal emails stolen from HBGary, a security firm that was working with the bank. In the emails, made public earlier this month by the activist hacker group Anonymous following a vengeful hack, an HBGary researcher said Morgan Stanley provided him details of the attack but asked that the information be kept secret.
The financial institution was one of those targeted in a series of coordinated attacks that have been dubbed “Operation Aurora.” Bloomberg News first reported this story on Monday. “They were hit hard by the real Aurora attacks (not the crap in the news),” Phil Wallisch, senior security engineer at HBGary, wrote in a June 4 email to HBGary President Penny Leavy-Hoglund. The attacks leveraged a previously unknown vulnerability in Internet Explorer to compromise systems at Google, Adobe and dozens of other companies. He never did. Anonymous lashes out at security firm HBGary Federal over Wikileaks probe - 2/7/2011.
Monday 07 February 2011 10:05 Hacking group Anonymous has lashed out at security firm HBGary Federal, which has been investigating its members. The security firm, in collaboration with the FBI, has been working to identify members of the group responsible for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on companies that suspended services to Wikileaks. Unlike the DDoS attacks, the latest activities by Anonymous members involved true hacking skills, according to Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at Sophos. This time, Anonymous compromised the HBGary website and replaced it with an image explaining the group's motivation, as well as downloading more than 60,000 emails from the company and posting them on The Pirate Bay, said Wisniewski. The Twitter account of HBGary's chief executive, Aaron Barr, was compromised and tweeted multiple offensive messages, as well as his home address, social security number and cell phone number.
Email Alerts. Colbert: Crossing Anonymous Is Like Sticking Your Penis In a Hornets' Nest. BoA Fraud & Corruption Docs. Bank of America and the secret plan to destroy WikiLeaks - World news, News. By Jerome Taylor – 18 February 2011 Last week Anonymous volunteers broke into the servers of HB Gary Federal, a security company that sells investigative services to companies, and posted thousands of the firm's emails on to the internet. The attack was in revenge for claims by the company's chief executive Aaron Barr that he had successfully infiltrated the shadowy cyber protest network and discovered details of its leadership and structure.
Hacktivists, journalists and bloggers have since pored over the emails and discovered what appears to be a proposal that was intended to be pitched to the Bank of America to sabotage WikiLeaks and discredit journalists who are sympathetic to the whistle-blowing website. One of those mentioned is Glenn Greenwald, a pro-WikiLeaks reporter in the US.
Writing on Salon.com Greenwald stated that his initial reaction to was "to scoff at its absurdity". The Bank of America does not seem to have directly solicited the services of HB Gary Federal. Independent. Morgan Stanley hit by same attackers that breached Google. High performance access to file storage Morgan Stanley was hit by a “very sensitive” breach to its network by the same attackers who penetrated computer systems maintained by Google and dozens of other companies, according to leaked emails reviewed by Bloomberg News. The emails came from California-based HBGary, which suffered a major compromise of its own at the hands of hackers from Anonymous. After being hired by Morgan Stanley in 2010, HBGary members found that the world's top merger adviser fell prey to the so-called Aurora hacks, which siphoned source code and other sensitive data from the victim companies over a period of many months.
“They were hit hard by the real Aurora attacks (not the crap in the news),” Phil Wallisch, a senior security engineer at HBGary, wrote in one email. In a May 10 email to HBGary President Penny Leavy-Hoglund, Wallisch wrote: “They have given me access to a very sensitive report on their Aurora experience. HBGary CEO Also Suggested Tracking, Intimidating WikiLeaks’ Donors - Andy Greenberg - The Firewall. How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price. Aaron Barr believed he had penetrated Anonymous. The loose hacker collective had been responsible for everything from anti-Scientology protests to pro-Wikileaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa, and the FBI was now after them. But matching their online identities to real-world names and locations proved daunting. Barr found a way to crack the code. In a private e-mail to a colleague at his security firm HBGary Federal, which sells digital tools to the US government, the CEO bragged about his research project.
"They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC [Internet Relay Chat] aliases! " But had he? "We are kind of pissed at him right now" Barr's "pwning" meant finding out the names and addresses of the top Anonymous leadership. "At any given time there are probably no more than 20-40 people active, accept during hightened points of activity like Egypt and Tunisia where the numbers swell but mostly by trolls," he wrote in an internal e-mail. Indeed, publicity was the plan. HBGary Federal hacked and exposed by Anonymous. As the coin was tossed to kick off Superbowl XLV, Anonymous unleashed their anger at a security firm who had been investigating their membership.
HBGary Federal had been working on unmasking their identities in cooperation with an FBI investigation into the attacks against companies who were cutting off WikiLeaks access and financing. Unlike the DDoS attacks for which Anonymous has made headlines in recent months, this incident involved true hacking skills. Anonymous compromised the HBGary website and replaced it with an image explaining their motivation. In addition to the defacement, they downloaded over 60,000 emails from the company and posted them on The Pirate Bay. The Twitter account of HBGary's CEO, Aaron Barr, was also compromised and tweeted multiple offensive messages, as well as his home address, social security number and cell phone. According to Forbes, the LinkedIn accounts of other HBGary executives were compromised "in minutes. " Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack.
Anonymous Takes Revenge On Security Firm For Trying To Sell Supporters’ Details To FBI - Parmy Olson - Disruptors. HBG Tries 2 Protect US from Anon. (update below) HBGary Federal, provider of classified cybersecurity services to the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community and other US government agencies, has opted over the past months to go to war with the group of WikiLeaks supporters known as Anonymous. The Tech Herald reported today on HBGary Federal and two other data intelligence firms “strategic plan” for an attack against WikiLeaks. The company is considered to be “a leading provider of best-in-class threat intelligence solutions for government agencies and Fortune 500 organizations.” It provides "enhanced threat intelligence" so "the federal government can better protect our national cyber infrastructure.
" Almost a year ago, the company received an extension to their contract with the US Department of Homeland Security to “conduct a series of hands-on memory forensics and malware analysis training events with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials around the country.” HBGary and Palantir are partners. AnonLeaks destapa el proyecto “Magenta”: Windows con rootkit indetectable e imposible de eliminar en Bitelia (Internet) Corporate plot to silence WikiLeaks revealed.
Sunday, February 20, 2011 Leaked emails have revealed a plot by private internet security firms to bring down WikiLeaks. The plot was allegedly created on behalf of the Bank of America — the largest bank in the US. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange has said Bank of America will be the subject of future leaks. Computer-hacker group Anonymous revealed the plot after stealing 50,000 internal emails from internet security company HBGary Federal. The hackers attacked the HBGary Federal website after executive Aaron Barr boasted to the media that the company was working to expose members of WikiLeaks, The New York Times said on February 11.
Anonymous supported WikiLeaks in December by shutting down the websites of Visa, Mastercard and PayPal after those companies cut off WikiLeaks’ ability to raise funds via their services. The emails included a report commissioned by law firm Hunton & Williams, apparently on behalf of Bank of America, Thetechherald.com said on February 7. From GLW issue 869. DC's Dirty Tricks, Revealed in Memo for the Chamber of Commerce | The Atlantic Wire. ZDNet - HBGary withdraws from RSA. Anonymous empire strikes back against HBGary - Security. The powerful law firm at the center of the WikiLeaks plot - War Room. One of the big outstanding questions in the story of the plot to undermine WikiLeaks and Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, as well as a separate plan to discredit critics of the Chamber of Commerce, is the nature of the role played by the large international law firm Hunton & Williams.
Hunton, which brags it employs 1,000 lawyers in 18 offices on three continents, has worked for both the Chamber and Bank of America. The company is nervous because WikiLeaks is reportedly planning to release internal bank documents, and Bank of America apparently connected with Hunton to help respond to the crisis. Hunton attorneys in turn had a series of e-mail communications — since hacked by WikiLeaks supporters and published online — with a trio of technology firms that proposed various schemes to attack WikiLeaks, Greenwald and critics of the Chamber. (One typical idea was to provide labor activists with false documents in order to discredit them.) Hunton also has a big lobbying business in Washington.