While Lulzsec took the spotlight yesterday afternoon in its successful defacement of The Sun’s website, displaying an article that claimed Rupert Murdoch had died, the FBI was busy following through on search warrants in NY to arrest alleged members of rival hacktivist group Anonymous. According to Fox News, at least 10 FBI agents showed up at Giordani Jordan’s doorstep in Baldwin, NY this Tuesday morning, as similar search and seizure raids were conducted in Long Island, NY and Brooklyn, NY.
Law enforcement told Fox News that Jordan’s computer equipment was being used in some of Anonymous’ infamous DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, which can take a website down by simply flooding it with requests.
These police actions follow a string of similar arrests in Europe, starting with 19-year old Londoner Ryan Cleary and heading to locations in Switzerland and Italy afterwards.
As law enforcement agencies around the world struggle to keep up with the burgeoning anti-sec groups, hacktivist groups that aim to expose websites’ security vulnerabilities by attacking and pillaging their data stores, the attention may only serve to redouble the efforts of the accused to continue their streak of successes.
After Anonymous attacked Mastercard and Visa’s websites earlier this year in response to the companies’ refusal to accept donations to Wikileaks, Anonymous and other groups like Lulzsec have taken advantage of increased media attention to attack websites and companies, almost feeding off the attention they are given every step of the way.
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