Anonymous Hacker Group Attacks Egyptian Government Sites

NEW YORK — Hacker activists started attacking Egyptian government websites on Wednesday, apparently taking them offline soon after the country restored Internet service.

An Internet forum run by a loose international group that calls itself "Anonymous" directed participants to attack the websites of the Egyptian Ministry of Information and the ruling National Democratic Party. Neither was accessible from New York on Wednesday afternoon.

In a Twitter post, the group claimed credit for taking down the ministry's website and said the group was motivated by a desire to support Egyptian protesters.

The same group rallied to support WikiLeaks in November and December, attacking websites of companies it saw as hampering the document-distribution site.

The Egyptian government cut off all Internet service in the country on Friday, then restored it early Wednesday.

One member of Anonymous, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the possibly illegal nature of its activities, said the number of participants in the attacks was much lower than it was in December. Thousands of young people then joined in attacks on such sites as MasterCard.com and Visa.com – in those cases because the payment processors declined to transfer money to WikiLeaks.

But because the Egyptian government websites are much easier to take down, the lower number of participants is still adequate, the member said.

The member said the weapon of choice for the hackers is the same as in December: a small program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon. It sends out a flood of fake traffic to a selected website, swamping it if it doesn't have enough capacity.

Comments

[c187]

02:26 PM on 02/03/2011

So when did Anon hire a spokesperson?

[Estevan Benson]

11:12 AM on 02/03/2011

dos attacks are getting boring.

[Johann Q]

09:29 AM on 02/03/2011

This article repeats three common misconceptions about Anon:
1. Anon being hackers - There are "some" hackers among Anon, but not quite as many as you might think, according to the term "hacker group used here. The hackers are definitly a minority, probably less then 10% of Anon are hackers. Yes, Anon members are generally a lot more tech savy then the average Joe, but that doesnt make them "hackers". All it takes to take part in Anon is knowing how to join an IRC-channel and having a client for that (mIRC, Pidgin, Miranda etc.) and maybe some search-skills to find out which IRC-server is currently up and running (since they're frequently taken out).
2. Anon having members - there is no such thing as membership of Anon. There are some authorities, which can kick you out of the IRC-channel, if you write meaningless stuff, try to promote alternative targets or incite violence, but no membership.
3. Anon being largey limited to internet activities - a lot of the activity in the last days was faxing to Egyptian institutions and there have been "real" protests against Scientology organised by Anon.

On a side-note: I find it questionable that this article explicitly mentions LOIC. People have been arrested for using it (against Mastercard, for example) and I think HP should not put uninformed readers at risk that might think it must be "alright", if it's mentioned here.

[netzwerg]

06:18 AM on 02/03/2011

You can also just enter "hping3 -V -c 1000000 -d 120 -S -w 64 -p 445 -s 445 --flood --rand-source target-IP" into your linux console. Same effect as LOIC.

Downloading Low orbit Ion cannon software and hitting Start is easier for the dumb kids though.

[Johann Q]

09:08 AM on 02/03/2011

Correct, with linux, there are easier options to do this. But the market share of linux is still not all that high, i am afraid.

[C Karen Stopford]

05:06 AM on 02/03/2011

Low Orbit Ion Cannon? Hey, does that come in a Cracker Jack box? These guys aren't exactly hackers, sorry.... they're just the kind of people that help so-called "security" companies sell software. Low Power Pop Gun might be a better name for the tool.

But anyway, I do kinda admire their misguided adolescent desire to be freedom fighters.

[HerodotusWept]

09:46 AM on 02/03/2011

So much better to post in a smugly superior way on HuffPo instead of trying to do something, eh?

[CabCurious]

03:36 AM on 02/03/2011

Beyond a giddy adolescent joy at sticking it to the man, this is really unhelpful.

[Thankgoodness]

03:04 AM on 02/03/2011

internet wars are the new frontier, these fools are dope! rock on, the revolution with not be televised people!

[polishlogician]

01:39 AM on 02/03/2011

"One member of Anonymous, speaking on condition of anonymity..."

you are how you speak...

[mylittlepwny]

07:31 AM on 02/03/2011

Those Who apprently speak for anonymous kinda don't get what anonymous is about, there is no rigid central core of beliefs and no member role.

[EricBishop]

12:53 AM on 02/03/2011

Those "anonymous" guys and girls are TOTAL sweetheart. I had a 3hr argument with my family about whether they are more charming than they are attractive or more funny than they are charming or more attractive than they are funny. All of us got migraines and had to go to sleep in dark rooms.

On a totally unrelated subject, I would just like to say how unlikely it would be for me to alert the authorities if $20M was "unknowingly" laundered through my savings account by being transfered from a Swiss Bank to a Cayman bank. I wouldn't think that such a transaction was at all suspicious.

[NebDem78]

11:16 PM on 02/02/2011

Anonymous are opportunists that really don't care about the damage they may cause. It's unfortunate that many people are fooled by them, and can't see a spade for what it is.

[Boudicaa]

11:28 PM on 02/02/2011

Thank you for being a grown up NebDem.

[Johann Q]

09:10 AM on 02/03/2011

Thank you for being a hypocrit.

[bhavanibbana]

12:40 AM on 02/03/2011

As you plainly exemplify, far more people are fooled by themselves than by Anonymous.

[chbulla]

10:39 PM on 02/02/2011

But.. using someones program to do things isn't being hacker, haxor as is sometimes seen..thats being a power user.

[EricBishop]

01:00 AM on 02/03/2011

I encourage you to learn how to express yourself in English through the written word at some point in your life. It's a shame you've not accomplished that goal yet.

[Dave Bee]

09:09 PM on 02/02/2011

its about damn time

[Rick Eriksen]

08:27 PM on 02/02/2011

Well that all sounds noble and everything, but how does that help the Egyptians, exactly???

[Dave Bee]

09:10 PM on 02/02/2011

its called giving the government a taste of their own medicine. not EVERYTHING has to help the egyptians DIRECTLY.

[Waryaa]

04:29 AM on 02/03/2011

look mate, the whole country is in chaos, government has lost all control, websites being taken down is the least of their worries, lol i think anonymous would be doing a great job attacking egyptian tv website but as i said cyber attacks is useless now.

[NebDem78]

11:11 PM on 02/02/2011

It doesn't help them at all in my opinion. It only makes the security apparatus more isolated and defensive.

[zelduh]

11:33 PM on 02/02/2011

I just heard that the pro-Gov't faction got the Internet turned on so that they could organize and plan the attack on the pro-Democracy set.

So, if Anonymous could have blocked any of that, then cool!

[mick8535]

11:44 PM on 02/02/2011

I want to thank you for being the grown up too. Thank you... uh, yeah.

[callmeslice23]

07:57 PM on 02/02/2011

A bunch of pizza faced basement dwellers use their moms computer for a zombie DDoS.

Get real, they aren't actually doing anything other than posting cat pictures on *chan and drinking mountain dew by the gallon.

[HekmagaJuximakLives]

09:19 PM on 02/02/2011

Mountain Dew -- the secret of Air Traffic Controllers everywhere

[TaxpayingVoter]

11:17 PM on 02/02/2011

Not true.

Some of us like diet coke.