Summary-A report by Symantec suggests that members of Anonymous may have
downloaded a Zeus Trojan that gave hackers access to their financial
details. Anonymous, for its part, declares Symantec's report "libelous."
(Credit:
Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
As political parties, bank managers, and drug dealers have often found to their cost, infiltrators can be very hard to detect.
This is something that, perhaps, the members of Anonymous recently
discovered for themselves, at least according to Symantec, the online
security people.
For the company believes that members of the hacking collective were
deceived into downloading a Zeus Trojan that gave up their banking
details and other personal information.
On its blog,
Symantec described how, on January 20--the day of the rather charming
Kim Dotcom's sequestration by the FBI--members of Anonymous used their
own personal computers to participate in DDoS attacks.
These were launched against a broad and institutional swathe of
targets, such as the Recording Industry Association of America and the
FBI.
Some mean-spirited--and still anonymous--individual allegedly
inserted a Zeus Trojan into the Slowloris attack tool, of which many
DDoS-ers are fond.
When members of Anonymous downloaded this tool, their banking details
were apparently exposed like boxer shorts above low-slung pants and
sent to a remote server.
I am grateful to MSNBC for discovering Symantec's troubling analysis.
(Credit:
Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
However, Anonymous seems to have unloaded its own feelings about it.
For,
on the YourAnonNews Twitter feed,
there was posted a fierce rebuttal: "This post from @Symantec about
@YourAnonNews's spreading the DDOS hijacking trojan is wrong &
libelous to say the least http://goo.gl/MUVxD."
The following tweet read: "Dear @Symantec - @YourAnonNews NEVER
posted the DDOS hijacker nor did we attempt to trick people; instead we
WARNED of it."
And a third offered: "Also, @Symantec - maybe if you paid attention
to more details and did proper due diligence, your source code wouldn't
have been stolen. SMH."
So there.
Some will chortle with schadenfreude that the hackers may have
themselves been hacked. But doesn't this tale, if true, offer something
greater--and something sadder--about the brittleness of human trust?
In Anonymous' case, one assumes that many of its members have never
met in person. Their relationship is guided entirely by their ability to
trust through gadget-based means.
It is the equivalent of trying to find a lover online and only ever
having dates with them online. You can't so easily look them in the eyes
and see if their facial expressions and body movements betray their
true thoughts. Skype doesn't quite deliver the same chance of
interpreting human nuance.
Whenever you're trying to collectively build something--or even
collectively trying to destroy something--a twisted being will soon waft
into your day, pretend they're on your side, and then try to ruin
things.
