Session Start: Mon Feb 07 03:17:59 2011 Session
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.
Anonymous victim HBGary goes to ground
16 February 2011Last updated at 18:33 HBGary's website was replaced with a logo and statement from Anonymous The computer security company hacked by members of activist group Anonymous has gone to ground as further revelations about its activities leak online. HBGary has cancelled its appearances at public events, saying that members of staff had been threatened. It follows the release of internal documents which appear to show the firm offered to smear Wikileaks' supporters. HBGary officials said the online messages could have been altered prior to publication. The company's founder, Greg Hoglund had been scheduled to give a talk at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco this week, but pulled out at the last minute. The company also withdrew from an associated exhibition. "In an effort to protect our employees, customers and the RSA Conference community, HBGary has decided to remove our booth and cancel all talks," it said in a statement posted on its website. Government payload
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
Who is Anonymous' Commander X? Not this guy
February 16, 2011, 9:39 AM — Benjamin Spock de Vries would like the world to know he is not a cyber terrorist. But if you read some of the 40,000+ emails that were stolen from HBGary Federal by Anonymous and posted on Pirate Bay, you might think otherwise. It seems Aaron Barr -- the CEO of HBGary Federal who thought he’d make a big splash by outing the leadership of Anonymous and instead ended up getting ridden hard and put away wet by the very hackers he sought to expose -- decided de Vries is in fact the mysterious Commander X, alleged puppetmaster of the Anonymous collective. So he said as much in some of the thousands of private email conversations the Anons just shared with the world. [ See also: That new Facebook friend might just be a spy ] This did not make de Vries happy. “I am not Anonymous,” de Vries told me during an agitated phone conversation last night. What attack? The reason Barr thought De Vries was the elusive X? Ipso facto, de Vries is Commander X.
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.” 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. HBGary counts as an advisor Andy Purdy, who was a member of the White House staff team that helped to draft the U.S. Update
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