Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack

“It has been an embarrassing week for security firm HBGary and
its HBGary Federal offshoot. HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr thought
he had unmasked the hacker hordes of Anonymous and was preparing to
name and shame those responsible for co-ordinating the group’s
actions, including the denial-of-service attacks that hit
MasterCard, Visa, and other perceived enemies of WikiLeaks late
last year.

“When Barr told one of those he believed to be an Anonymous
ringleader about his forthcoming exposé, the Anonymous
response was swift and humiliating. HBGary’s servers were broken
into, its e-mails pillaged and published to the world, its data
destroyed, and its website defaced. As an added bonus, a second
site owned and operated by Greg Hoglund, owner of HBGary, was taken
offline and the user registration database published.

“Over the last week, I’ve talked to some of those who
participated in the HBGary hack to learn in detail how they
penetrated HBGary’s defenses and gave the company such a stunning
black eye—and what the HBGary example means for the rest of
us mere mortals who use the Internet.”

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