The Leaked Plan to Attack WikiLeaks and its Supporters

Anonymous releases 71,800 HBGary e-mails through new site

Try to take on Anonymous or WikiLeaks, and they'll get you back: The hacktivist site is single-handedly destroying HBGary's reputation for threatening its members and planning to sabotage WikiLeaks.

Any companies out there considering taking down Anonymous in return for the various DDoS attacks the group staged earlier this year might want to think twice. The hacktivist group recently infiltrated security firm HBGary Federal’s network and accumulated various confidential material and internal e-mails. The firm’s CEO Aaron Barr allegedly had plans to rat out Anonymous members to the FBI, and as revenge he can now find his and various other HBGary employees’ e-mails publicly posted (HBGary is HBGary Federal’s sister company). In addition to outing Anonymous members, HBGary was one of the handful firms orchestrating an image attack to destroy WikiLeaks’ reputation. WikiLeaks is reportedly preparing to release confidential documents belonging to Bank of America, and according to Forbes, HBGary would work for the company by “spreading misinformation, launching cyberattacks against [WikiLeaks], and pressuring journalists.”
Anonymous is now hosting a site (and there are a variety of mirrors as well) giving anyone access to 71,800 e-mails from the inboxes of HBGary executives Greg Hogland, Aaron Barr, Ted Vera, and Phil Wallisch. Subject matter ranges from a PowerPoint presentation detailing intentions to plant false stories about WikiLeaks to embarrassing love letters between company execs.
This is more than humiliating for HBGary – it’s financially ruining the company. Security firms Berico Technologies and Palantir Technologies have cut ties with HBGary. The released documents tied both firms to the operations defending Bank of American by sabotaging WikiLeaks, and now they’re wiping their hands of the situation. Aside from any business relationships Anonymous’ latest hack and release damaged for HBGary, the fact that a security firm was infiltrated by the group in the first place speaks volumes.
WikiLeaks holds powerful information, and it seems like security firms will stop at nothing to retain it – or at least threaten the group and its supporters to the point of keeping their mouths shut. But it appears that Anonymous has more in its arsenal than unsophisticated DDoS attacks, and the group is ready to use them.

 http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/anonymous-releases-71800-hbgary-e-mails-through-new-site/

Anonymous unleashes its wrath on informant

                                                                                                      VS

                                                                                                      

  

The Internet "hacktivist" collective known as Anonymous has unleashed a full-scale and crippling online attack on a man who was about to blow the roof off the group’s hidden identity.

Aaron Barr, chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based security firm HBGary Federal, planned to unmask members of Anonymous, the group that organized Internet attacks both on businesses that cut ties with WikiLeaks and, most recently, against government websites in Tunisia and Egypt.

On Saturday,the Financial Times ran a story in which Barr said he had uncovered the identities of Anonymous members, and would reveal them at a security conference this week.The day after the Financial Times piece came out, Barr’s online security began to crumble.

Five members of Anonymous brought down HBGary Federal’s website Sunday. Then they hacked into Barr’s Twitter account — @aaronbarr — and posted his home address, cell-phone and Social Security numbers and a stream of fake and offensive messages.

They also stole 50,000 of Barr’s personal e-mails — now linked to from his Twitter page — as well as his company’s financial records.  A Forbes magazine report said Anonymous was planning to erase data on HBGary Federal's servers.

The digital smack-down continued: Anonymous’ foot soldiers went after Barr’s colleagues and his boss, Ted Vera, whose LinkedIn profile name they changed to a homophobic slur.And in a final display of defiance, Anonymous members decided that rather than squash the 23-page dossier that Barr had compiled containing the group’s secret identities, they would make the document public themselves. Anonymous posted the document online, and said Barr’s findings were mostly incorrect. Members of Anonymous have reason to be worried.  British authorities arrested five men last month in connection with the WikiLeaks-related attacks, and the FBI executed two dozen searches across the U.S. at the same time. Anonymous members claimed over the weekend that Barr planned to hand over his list to the FBI, but the dossier itself seems more like an unfinished series of notes than a formal report.
A recent post on Barr’s Twitter page, presumably posted by a member of Anonymous, summed up the situation: “Today we taught everyone a lesson. When we actually decide to bite back against those who try to bring us down, we bite back hard.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41465455/ns/technology_and_science-security/?gt1=43001