USA Busts Hacktivist Gangs, Additional Online-Crime Arrests Follow

FBI declared that it took into its custody 16 people across the US who apparently participated in an online assault against PayPal and is suspected to be a part of the Anonymous hackers' gang. The announcement followed merely some days after a gang comprising Anonymous hackers was detained inside Spain because it was allegedly involved during the hack of PlayStation, reported ITBusinessEdge on July 20, 2011.

Notably, due to the arrests, it was possible to peer through the lives of hacker-activists seeking to infiltrate or crash computers with various motifs like gaining political benefits, or capturing credit card details.

Even on being arrested, the hackers' were not frightened as ideas cannot be arrested. They revealed that in future, they seek to concentrate on organizations and collaborate with governments in return of which, they would charge heavy ransom.

Two security companies on being aware of one spear phishing scam by the hackers said that the criminals sent e-mails to contractors after corrupting the messages with malware. Actually, a certain contractor's executive had dispatched one sample of the phishing e-mail to the security companies.

Incidentally, spear phishing assaults involve computer hackers who send e-mails to selected targets providing elaborate information about their lives with the idea that the targets could be convinced towards slackening the security on their PCs followed with hitting on the contaminated web-links.

However, law enforcement officers remarked that the arrest represented a crucial incidence, which effectively stopped several individuals in becoming involved in the problem as also would definitely generate information suitable for locating other targets.

Meanwhile, assaults by Anonymous as also associated 'hacker-activist' gangs that have attracted widespread interest but, for FBI, other online offences focusing on espionage call for greater priority. The agency has included in its list of priorities, intrusions at the IMF, Lockheed Martin and Google.

Moreover, Anonymous along with LulzSec has further asserted that they were behind striking websites within Egypt, Syria, India and Tunisia to fulfill political interests, while also attacked the US Senate's and CIA's public websites.

Related article: US Passes Baton to Asia in Spam Relay

» SPAMfighter News - 8/2/2011