{"id":251847,"date":"2021-05-17T16:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T13:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it\/"},"modified":"2021-05-17T16:00:40","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T13:00:40","slug":"power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it\/","title":{"rendered":"#Power to the People? Why Hacktivism is Back \u2013 CloudSavvy IT"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a278119c91e3\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a278119c91e3\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it\/#What_Is_Hacktivism\" >What Is Hacktivism?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it\/#Hacktivism_and_Leaktivism\" >Hacktivism and Leaktivism<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it\/#What_is_the_Motive\" >What is the Motive?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/power-to-the-people-why-hacktivism-is-back-cloudsavvy-it\/#Its_Still_a_Crime\" >It\u2019s Still a Crime<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><strong>&#8220;#Power to the People? Why Hacktivism is Back \u2013 CloudSavvy IT&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-content-area\">\n<figure style=\"width: 2390px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"type:primaryImage wp-image-11301 size-full\" data-pagespeed-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/05\/81b62b5d.png?width=1200&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"hacker mask\" width=\"2390\" height=\"1256\" src=\"\/pagespeed_static\/1.JiBnMqyl6S.gif\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"type:primaryImage imagecredit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-photo\/paris-france-19-may-2018-vendetta-1096622228\">Shutterstock\/NeydtStock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hacktivists use hacking to further their activist goals, attacking companies they feel deserve punishment, exposure, and service disruption. Hacktivism is on the rise again. We look at what is driving this resurgence.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-is-hacktivism\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_Is_Hacktivism\"><\/span>What Is Hacktivism?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The term hacktivist was first coined by a member of the\u00a0Cult of the Dead Cow, a hacking group that used to meet in an abandoned slaughterhouse in Lubbock, Texas. It is a portmanteau word joining hacking and activist.<\/p>\n<p>Hacktivists see themselves as <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> justice warriors carrying out attacks against targets that are, as far as they are concerned, deserving of service disruption and downtime. They will target organizations that they wish to bring public attention to, or highlight a cause they support. Their methods are the digital equivalent of physical activism events such as lobbying, workplace disruption, picket lines, and sit-ins.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve only ever heard of one hacktivist group, it\u2019s a safe bet that group is\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anonymous_(hacker_group)\">Anonymous<\/a>. It grew out of the\u00a04chan\u00a0image-posting website. Anonymous have attacked such organizations as\u00a0Al-Qaida,\u00a0ISIS, the\u00a0KKK, the\u00a0Church of Scientology, the anti-Islamic group\u00a0Reclaim Australia, the UK\u2019s\u00a0Sun <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>paper, and the\u00a0Westboro Baptist Church.<\/p>\n<p>Typically, Anonymous will use a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack to render the victim\u2019s website inoperable, or they will deface web pages with their own political messages, or they may leak private information online, an attack\u00a0known as doxxing.<\/p>\n<p>Anonymous has spawned other hacking groups such as\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/LulzSec\">LulzSec<\/a>. Lulzsec wanted to do something more akin to cybervandalism, which didn\u2019t fit with Anonymous\u2019s credo. If Anonymous was the digital equivalent of a student sit-in in the library, LulzSec wanted to pile up the books and burn them.<\/p>\n<p>Their idea of fun was wreaking havoc indiscriminately, a practice that saw four key members arrested in 2012 and imprisoned in 2013. They admitted hacking into the websites of the\u00a0CIA, the UK\u2019s\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/technology\/news\/9243249\/Soca-website-shut-down-by-cyber-attack.html\">Serious Organised Crime Agency<\/a>,\u00a0News International,\u00a0Sony,\u00a0Nintendo, and\u00a020th Century Fox\u00a0amongst others.<\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is all hacktivism is illegal, whether it is fuelled by idealism or kids looking for laughs. Perhaps because the perpetrators realized that it wasn\u2019t an anonymous crime and that they could be traced and arrested, there was a gradual decline in hacktivism incidents. 2020 and 2021 have seen a resurgence of hacktivist activity, across a broad spread of targets.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"hacktivism-and-leaktivism\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Hacktivism_and_Leaktivism\"><\/span>Hacktivism and Leaktivism<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>WikiLeaks, the website that says it \u201cspecializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying, and corruption\u201d created a model for others to copy. Infamous for making public all manner of confidential and sensitive documents, WikiLeaks demonstrated the power of exposure and transparency as a weapon that could be used against the organizations the documents belong to.<\/p>\n<p>Exfiltrating private data and making it publicly accessible is a classic doxxing cybercrime. But instead of the data dumps being hosted at disparate locations around the web and Dark Web, WikiLeaks provided a central repository for stolen documents, emails, and data.<\/p>\n<p>The other two common hacktivist attack types are\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/281707\/what-are-denial-of-service-and-ddos-attacks\/\">Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks<\/a>\u00a0(DDoS), and defacing websites. A DDoS attack floods a website with so much bogus internet traffic that the webserver cannot cope. The website is effectively taken off the air.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the doxxing attack that is suddenly popular.\u00a0In fact, the extracting and leaking of sensitive information and files has become so common that there\u2019s a brand new name for this type of hacktivism: leaktivism.<\/p>\n<p>Not to be confused with a DDOS attack,\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ddosecrets.com\/wiki\/Distributed_Denial_of_Secrets\">Distributed Denial of Secrets<\/a>\u00a0is a 501(c)(3) non-profit \u201cdevoted to enabling the free transmission of data in the public interest.\u201d They don\u2019t describe themselves as hacktivists, but list hacktivists as one of the sources of the documents they publish.<\/p>\n<p>They have published such data collections as the\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ddosecrets.com\/wiki\/BlueLeaks\">BlueLeaks<\/a>\u00a0release. It\u2019s a massive collection of almost 270 gigabytes of data spanning over 25 years, and containing information from more than 200 U.S. law enforcement agencies. Anonymous has claimed responsibility for obtaining the data.<\/p>\n<p>Two hackers, \u201ccApTaIn JaXpArO\u201d and My Little Anonymous Revival Project, have claimed responsibility for the\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/life-style\/gadgets-and-tech\/gab-offline-hack-twitter-security-b1814489.html\">hacks and data dumps<\/a>\u00a0against the far-right social media platform, Gab. The 70 gigabytes of data contains public posts, private posts, user profiles, hashed passwords for users, direct messages, and plain text passwords for groups. Distributed Denial of Secrets\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ddosecrets.com\/wiki\/GabLeaks\">is hosting this data too<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In Jan.\u00a02020 the\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ddosecrets.substack.com\/p\/release-parler\">Parler alt-right social platform was hacked<\/a>\u00a0and 32 terabytes of data stolen. it contained a million videos and images, some of them recorded during the Jan.\u00a06, 2021, Washington D.C. coup. Distributed Denial of Secrets makes it available to journalists upon request.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"what-is-the-motive\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_is_the_Motive\"><\/span>What is the Motive?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Emma Best, one of the founders of Distributed Denial of Secrets, wrote that \u201c2020 set a record for the \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ddosecrets.substack.com\/p\/hacktivism-leaktivism-and-the-future\">most information leaked to the public in a single year<\/a>, one that was quickly smashed by the first months of 2021 with the Parler hack.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The rise of leaktivism is driven by a number of different factors. Not least is the fact that more information is being created and stored digitally than ever before. If the public exposure of that data is going to be damaging to the target in a way that furthers the cause of the hacktivists, they will use the victims\u2019 own data against them. It\u2019s an attractive option to the hacktivists, and even more so when websites exist that will host the data, make it publicly accessible, and protect the identities of their sources.<\/p>\n<p>Given the nature of these recent high-profile cases, it\u2019s clear that the motivation behind these incidents was political. In fact, some of the data from the Parler hack was used in the second impeachment of former President Trump. But the target isn\u2019t always a specific group or platform. Sometimes it is a wider phenomenon that is being targeted.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2021, the security camera firm\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-56342525\">Verkada was hacked<\/a>. Feeds from schools, hospitals, prisons, and companies such as Tesla and CloudFlare were accessed, along with video recordings made from <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>roximately 150,000 surveillance cameras. The hackers behind the attack call themselves APT-69420 although they are not a genuine\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Advanced_persistent_threat\">advanced persistent threat<\/a>\u00a0(APT) group.<\/p>\n<p>The purpose was purportedly to draw attention to the level of surveillance we all live with. One of the hackers is on record\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-03-09\/hackers-expose-tesla-jails-in-breach-of-150-000-security-cams\">describing why they did it<\/a>. It carries more than a hint of the counterculture credo from the 1960s when being anti-establishment is justification enough: \u201c\u2026lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism\u2014and it\u2019s also just too much fun not to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of the fun probably went out of it when they were indicted for\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-wdwa\/pr\/swiss-hacker-indicted-conspiracy-wire-fraud-and-aggravated-identity-theft\">conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft<\/a>. Acting U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman said \u201cWrapping oneself in an allegedly altruistic motive does not remove the criminal stench from such intrusion, theft, and fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Justifying a hacktivist or leaktivist incident by calling it ideologically motivated is no defense in law.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"its-still-a-crime\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Its_Still_a_Crime\"><\/span>It\u2019s Still a Crime<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Hacktivism and leaktivism are crimes, regardless of the motive.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s similar to unauthorized penetration testers. They probe a company\u2019s cyberdefences, find vulnerabilities, and ask for a reward. On one level they\u2019re doing the company a favor by identifying the vulnerabilities before cybercriminals do.<\/p>\n<p>But what they are doing is illegal. You cannot probe a network without permission. And you cannot access a computer that doesn\u2019t belong to you and exfiltrate documents and data.<\/p>\n<p>Claiming your hacktivism is in the public interest\u2014even if it is\u2014doesn\u2019t change the law.\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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Why Hacktivism is Back \u2013 CloudSavvy IT&#8221; Shutterstock\/NeydtStock Hacktivists use hacking to further their activist goals, attacking companies they feel deserve punishment, exposure, and service disruption. Hacktivism is on the rise again. We look at what is driving this resurgence. What Is Hacktivism? The term hacktivist was first coined by a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cloudsavvyit.com\/p\/uploads\/2021\/05\/81b62b5d.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}