Anonymous Hacker Group: Who are they?

The hacker group Anonymous has been around for over 14 years now; their Guy Fawkes mask and logo is recognized on a global scale for their cyberattacks on various governments and companies. Their reputation is such that many companies across the globe have expert cybersecurity practices in place to prevent an attack from Anonymous, though their targets can never be predicted due to the scale of the group. This article will include who Anonymous are, their origins and some of their most popular and well-known hacks.

Who are Anonymous?

Anonymous, also known as Anonymous Collective, is a decentralized group of hackers with members across the globe who operate together to fight for social justice by implementing coordinated cyberattacks against their targets. They have no leader and are motivated by social or political reasons as a form of online protest; they target governments, companies or individuals promoting inequality or social injustice of any kind. They are a group focused on ensuring the global public’s right to privacy remains untouched and protected.

There are groups who have attempted to attach themselves to Anonymous, such as false flag Anonymous Sudan; however, Anonymous quickly denied any association with Anonymous Sudan and distanced themselves from that group. Read our overview of hacktivist group Anonymous Sudan.
 

Origins: How did they begin?

Anonymous started in 2003 as users on the online 4chan forum. They came together in private chat rooms and started trolling other users on the forum and other online communities. This is also where the name “Anonymous” originated from, since all users on 4chan remain anonymous. The group continued their online trolling, harassing, and hacking of individuals they disagreed with or disliked for years, up until 2007. In 2007, the media became aware of a group of online trolls who used their hacking skills to harass individuals or groups, and the media attempted to paint the group as physically violent. This gave the group more attention and in 2008 they implemented their first coordinated cyberattack called Project Chanology against the Church of Scientology. Project Chanology protested censorship and put Anonymous on the global map, bringing them media attention from around the world and labelling them firmly as hacktivists.

What makes this group different is that their members act on their own and sign their attacks as belonging to the Anonymous group. This makes it difficult to fully understand the scale of the group and how far their reach is. It also makes it difficult to ensure the hacks that are done do stand by the philosophy of Anonymous since anyone can join and perform a hack, labelling it as belonging to Anonymous. There is internal debate among members in secure chatrooms about targets but, overall, the members can implement cyberattacks providing they follow and maintain the group’s philosophy: fighting against governments and companies for social and political justice such as censorship or corruption.

Most popular Projects: What put their name on the map?

In January of 2008, the Church of Scientology attempted to censor an online blog for posting a video about Tom Cruise praising the Church, whose ideology and philosophy goes against the philosophy of Anonymous, causing the inception of the Anonymous Collective. Anonymous reacted to this video and the attempted censorship by creating Project Chanology, where they focused their cyberattacks on the Church’s website and physical protests at the premises of the Churches around the globe.

In December of 2010, the US government decided to act against WikiLeaks for leaking top secret information and documents. This resulted in various organizations, including PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, deciding to stop supporting WikiLeaks to prevent unwanted attention from the US government. In response to this, Anonymous launched Operation Payback where they targeted these organizations in retaliation by bringing down their websites for hours or days.

In January of 2012, the US Department of Justice and the FBI brought down the popular file-sharing website Megaupload; this act of censorship was ill-received. Anonymous retaliated using rolling DDoS attacks against the US government websites, including that of the US Department of Justice and the FBI, leading to both websites being temporarily down before being restored. Explore our free course about DDoS attacks.

In November of 2013, Anonymous launched operation Safe Winter in partnership with various other organizations and charities across the UK. This operation strove to raise awareness about homelessness and provide resources to those in need. It became so popular that it spread to both the USA and Turkey as well, with various organizations and charities in these countries joining the campaign.

In November of 2015, a group of terrorists attacked the Charli Hebdo newspaper offices in Paris, leading to fighting and violence around Paris. In response, Anonymous declared cyber war on the terrorist group, hacking into their cloud documents and the fake social media accounts they used for recruiting, and releasing them online. The accounts were thereafter either deactivated or abandoned; several of the fake accounts had the names of well-known organizations such as the BBC.

In March of 2022, Anonymous declared cyber war on Russia for their invasion of Ukraine, labelled Operation Russia. The operation is still ongoing, and has included multiple DDoS attacks, hacking into Russian documents and cameras, and releasing everything online to the public. The Russian government and various Russian companies, organizations and individuals have also been on the receiving end of cyberattacks by Anonymous due to their stance on the war.

Conclusion: Anonymous are an organization not to be messed with

To conclude, Anonymous is a global group of hackers that started in 2003 who remain anonymous and choose to fight for social and political justice. Although this group of anonymous hackers started as pranksters with basic hacking, they have evolved to become a powerful organization with members, it seems, in every country across the globe. Many think the group are defenders of the public’s right to privacy, while others think the group is out of control for releasing and distributing the sensitive documents they find in their hacks, potentially endangering the people listed on the documents. Whether or not they are friend or foe, that is still up for debate by corporations and individuals everywhere. Though one thing is clear; infringe upon the privacy rights of the public at your own risk.

Read our introduction about the different types of hacker that exist.