Anonymous posts success against IS
Anonymous- the collective hackers declared their first success against the IS. The group's Twitter account @opparisofficial proclaimed that "more than 5,500 IS Twitter accounts had been taken down." However, security experts are skeptical as the intelligence agencies prefer that IS operatives remain "effective on social media where they can be seen", and monitored rather than "have them disappear into the dark web."
Anonymous is a 12-year-old virtual community that's been linked to critical political hacks. It was responsible for making information public about the Zimbabwe government, revealing anomalies in Bay Area Rapid Transit as well as economic hacks on Visa, Mastercard and the Federal Reserve. It was also fundamental in waging cyber war against Ku Klux Klan agenda and the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.
Ghost Security Group has been feeding information to the US government since a long time and claims that Anonymous is not the only group to fight an online war against IS.
Anonymous published a video waging war through Operation Paris on IS. OperationParis would "identify perpetrators of the Paris terror attacks and all terrorist organisations linked to them". They would work towards acquiring intel to "dig deep into the roots of their manpower, disable their propaganda and stop their reach on social media" By releasing the information to the public, Anonymous aimed to curtail threats.
Responding to Anonymous' Operation Paris declaration, the IS issued a statement calling the hacker group "idiots". IS further offered guidance to pro-ISIS supporters to be beware of cyber attacks. "Islamic Cyber Army" published the statement in response to the video released by Anonymous declaring war on IS on its "official channel on the privacy app Telegram, giving a series of tips to ISIS supporters."
Waging a cyber war against IS, Anonymous began compiling an extensive list of Twitter accounts and web pages and started with publishing "the names and addresses of alleged ISIS recruiters". This information includes the "names, addresses and phone numbers of men living in countries including Afghanistan, Tunisia and Somalia." It also said that a 'high ranking recruiter' from Europe had been identified.
Anonymous hackers asked the public to help them in "hunting out and shutting down social media accounts and websites affiliated with Islamic State." Anonymous which is not centrally organized began running a special website and chatroom where it provided laymen the "tools necessary to increase their tallies." Three 'how-to-hack' guides were distributed by Anonymous for commoners: the NoobGuide, the ReporterGuide, and the SearcherGuide.
