HacktivistsAnonymous retaliates against cyber investigators
The international hacktivist group known as Anonymous recently released two large torrents of stolen government data including details on forensic methodologies and information regarding current and former law enforcement agency employees; the latest attacks come in retaliation to harsh sentences given to members of its group
Anonymous retaliates over harsh sentences // Source: fiestachapina.net
The international hacktivist group known as Anonymous recently released two large torrents of stolen government data including details on forensic methodologies and information regarding current and former law enforcement agency employees.
According to Anonymous, the latest attacks come in retaliation to harsh sentences given to members of its group.
“Let this be a warning to aspiring white hat ‘hacker’ sellouts and police collaborators: stay out the game or get owned and exposed. You want to keep mass arresting and brutalizing the 99%? We’ll have to keep owning your boxes and torrenting your mail spools, plastering your personal information all over the (sic) internets,” the group said.
In their most recent attack, Anonymous targeted Alfredo Baclagan, a former California highway patrol officer who retired in 2010 as the special agent supervisor for the California Department of Justice, where he managed the agency’s computer crime investigations.
“As part of our ongoing effort to expose and humiliate our white hat enemies, we targeted a Special Agent Supervisor of the CA Department of Justice in charge of computer crime investigations,” Anonymous said in a statement. “We are leaking over 38,000 private emails which contain detailed computer forensics techniques, investigation protocols, as well as highly embarrassing personal information.”
Among the files the group released was roughly six years’ worth of emails from an International Association of Computer Investigative Specialists (IACIS) email list which Baclagan was a member.
The emails “detail the methods and tactics cybercrime units use to gather electronic evidence, conduct investigations, and make arrests.” The group added that the emails can help hackers protect themselves against the techniques law enforcement official use to catch them.
“The information in these emails will prove essential to those who want to protect themselves from the techniques and procedures cybercrime investigators use to build cases,” the group said.
More specifically, the emails contained details on how cyber investigators used EnCase Forensic software, recent attempts to crack TrueCrypt drives, and tips for preparing search warrants and subpoenas.
Anonymous also said that it also released the IACIS’ entire subscriber list, which caused “the administrators to panic and shut their list and websites down.”
