March 13, 2012 at 11:49Attacks by groups of anonymous hackers make practical financial sense
The end of last year and the beginning of this can be safely called the time of previously unprecedented activity of various hacker groups, among which Anonymous are special. According to most reports of information security breaches, it is this group of people who is responsible for DDOS attacks and hacking sites of such serious organizations as the FBI and StratFor .
In the comments to such messages, the idea is often expressed that, in fact, the efforts of hackers do not make any practical sense: a certain site did not work for several days due to a DDOS attack or an inconceivable amount of gigabytes of personal correspondence of secret agents was stolen - in fact , it didn’t change anything, except for obvious political goals, when among the “merged” data, the authenticity of which is still in question, suddenly there is some scandalous information about public figures who are forced to do something with dubious minds and somehow make excuses. Here, of course, it should be noted that among the Anonymous shares there were also those that can be considered “moral”: here it’s enough to recall the termination of the child pornography network or publicationlists of fans of neo-Nazi themes.
Operation Robin Hood also stands apart here , the essence of which, according to hackers, was that the stolen credit card data would be used for charity purposes.
Here in this videoAnonymous spokesman says they already used Bank of America, Chase and CitiBank credit cards to transfer “thousands of dollars to protesters around the world, poor people and charities.” Experts in the field of electronic transactions in this regard had serious doubts, as the security departments of banks and financial institutions quickly monitor fraudulent transactions. Moreover, if a certain charity fund receives money of dubious origin into its account, then, according to the rules of Visa and MasterCard, it will have to pay a charge (chargeback fee).
On the eve of Catholic Christmas 2011, Anonymous hacked the server of the information-analytical organization StratFor, as a result of which about 50,000 credit card numbers were stolen, of which about 9,600 have not yet expired. At the same time, hackers made a statement that the finances of the organization serving the US administration for various military projects in Afghanistan and Iraq will serve for charitable purposes. This statement, of course, did not oblige anyone, since it is most likely impossible to verify the result of its implementation, just for reasons of privacy and the illegal origin of money.
Yesterday, the FBI released data indicating that credit cards that were stolen from StratFor servers made financial transactions worth at least $ 700,000, and this data is not yet final, as it includes the results of the investigation at the beginning of February. Here, of course, it is not clear whether it is about fulfilling their promising statements about disinterested financial assistance to charitable foundations, or whether hackers simply used the results of their “efforts” in their own interests. The following fact is clear: an attack and a "drain" of financial data, despite the bank's security systems, gives attackers a very specific income - at least someone from Anonymous (if you do not allow extreme carelessness due to the recent arrests of hackers, although there, according to their own words ,
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In the comments to such messages, the idea is often expressed that, in fact, the efforts of hackers do not make any practical sense: a certain site did not work for several days due to a DDOS attack or an inconceivable amount of gigabytes of personal correspondence of secret agents was stolen - in fact , it didn’t change anything, except for obvious political goals, when among the “merged” data, the authenticity of which is still in question, suddenly there is some scandalous information about public figures who are forced to do something with dubious minds and somehow make excuses. Here, of course, it should be noted that among the Anonymous shares there were also those that can be considered “moral”: here it’s enough to recall the termination of the child pornography network or publicationlists of fans of neo-Nazi themes.
Operation Robin Hood also stands apart here , the essence of which, according to hackers, was that the stolen credit card data would be used for charity purposes.
Here in this videoAnonymous spokesman says they already used Bank of America, Chase and CitiBank credit cards to transfer “thousands of dollars to protesters around the world, poor people and charities.” Experts in the field of electronic transactions in this regard had serious doubts, as the security departments of banks and financial institutions quickly monitor fraudulent transactions. Moreover, if a certain charity fund receives money of dubious origin into its account, then, according to the rules of Visa and MasterCard, it will have to pay a charge (chargeback fee).
On the eve of Catholic Christmas 2011, Anonymous hacked the server of the information-analytical organization StratFor, as a result of which about 50,000 credit card numbers were stolen, of which about 9,600 have not yet expired. At the same time, hackers made a statement that the finances of the organization serving the US administration for various military projects in Afghanistan and Iraq will serve for charitable purposes. This statement, of course, did not oblige anyone, since it is most likely impossible to verify the result of its implementation, just for reasons of privacy and the illegal origin of money.
Yesterday, the FBI released data indicating that credit cards that were stolen from StratFor servers made financial transactions worth at least $ 700,000, and this data is not yet final, as it includes the results of the investigation at the beginning of February. Here, of course, it is not clear whether it is about fulfilling their promising statements about disinterested financial assistance to charitable foundations, or whether hackers simply used the results of their “efforts” in their own interests. The following fact is clear: an attack and a "drain" of financial data, despite the bank's security systems, gives attackers a very specific income - at least someone from Anonymous (if you do not allow extreme carelessness due to the recent arrests of hackers, although there, according to their own words ,
[ Source ]