The hacking group Anonymous on Sunday declared “total war” against the Islamic State, the terror organization that claimed responsibility for the attacks on Friday that killed 129 people in Paris.
Anonymous also posted the above video, confirming the message was in response to the events in Paris.
According to the group's Twitter account, Anonymous began taking down websites associated with ISIS on Monday morning. Anonymous also retweeted a link to the following message from the hacktivist group Binary Sec:
“We as a collective will bring an end to your reign of terror. We will no longer turn a blind eye to your cruel and inhumane acts of terrorism towards all other religions that are not Islam. We’ve watched you behead innocent people, kidnap and murder children, and then launch terrorist attacks in France. This will NOT BE TOLERATED ANY LONGER. We here at BinarySec live for the sole purpose of bringing down All ISIS Propaganda ONE website and/or person at a time. ISIS… Your Jihad is coming to an abrupt end. We here at BinarySec will be one of the driving forces to your end and that’s a promise. ISIS…The War Is On.”
This is not the first time that Anonymous has taken on ISIS. Foreign Policy Magazine reports that the conflict between hackers that identify with Anonymous and ISIS has waged online for more than a year. A tipping point that forced many hackers to join the cause were the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and kosher market in Paris earlier this year.
According to the FP report from last week, hackers have taken 149 Islamic State-linked websites offline and flagged roughly 101,000 Twitter accounts and 5,900 propaganda videos.
The remaining question is whether or not these hackers aiming to achieve social good are helping or harming state-driven attempts to take out the terror group. Technology companies have said in the past that government intelligence agencies ask them not to take down ISIS-related content because, when using the legal avenues at hand, they are able to more effectively track these groups.
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MEANWHILE, ISIS shot back at Anonymous, calling the group "idiots," as Chris Smith reports for BGR:
While it sounds like a mobile game you’d play to kill time, hackers vs. terrorists is sadly a real war. The hacker collective that goes by the name “Anonymous” recently posted a video on YouTube declaring war on ISIS in response to the attacks on Paris that left 129 dead and hundreds injured on Friday night. Anonymous wants to “launch the biggest operation ever” against the terrorist group, and ISIS is apparently taking notice – though the organization apparently believes Anonymous are “idiots” for even considering digital warfare.
“Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down. We will launch the biggest operation ever against you,” a masked person said in the hackers’ video. “Expect massive cyberattacks. War is declared. Get prepared.” In response, a Telegram channel that is believed to be affiliated with ISIS hackers sent out a warning message in Arabic and English, telling others how to thwart Anonymous hacks.
“The #Anonymous hackers threatened in new video release that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots),” the statement said, according to Business Insider.
“What they gonna hack?” ISIS asked, noting that so far, hackers have only managed to hit ISIS-affiliated Twitter accounts and email addresses.
The message on the Telegram channel, an encrypted chat service that may have been used to help plot the Paris attacks, also says that followers should not open any links unless they’re sure of the source, change IP addresses “constantly,” and “not talk to people [you] don’t know on Telegram” or through Twitter direct messages.
This isn’t the first time Anonymous has set its sights on ISIS. Following the January Charlie Hebdo attacks, hackers tried to identify ISIS social media accounts and take down extremist websites.
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