Anonymous hacktivists could be hiding in plain sight like 'wolves in sheep's clothing', warns secur

Sydney, July 26 (ANI): The people claiming to be 'hacktivists' of the notorious hacking group, Anonymous, could be hiding in plain sight, and pose like 'wolves in sheep's clothing', an Australian internet security expert has warned.

Phil Kernick, Chief Technology Officer of CQR Consulting believes that the hacktivists could be cyber criminals or hostile governments, who might be using the publicly acceptable alias of 'Anonymous' to trick people into handing over their data.

"Imagine that Anonymous encouraged users to help bring down the Australian Government by downloading software and told them on to press a button on a specific date, bombard a website and take it offline, but instead of getting a real version of the software you are pointed to a website which has an embedded banking Trojan (virus)," the Herald Sun quoted Kernick, as saying.

"This kind of behaviour is perfect for people who want to attack you. Attacking the government is just a side effect. It may not even work but it doesn't matter. It's not what they're trying to achieve," he added.

Kernick emphasised that he did not believe the recent attacks on Australian government websites and ISPs were the work of cyber criminals or nation states, but it was the group's popularity which made the possibility of such an incident easier.

He cited the recent hacking of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's email account as a perfect example.

"The question is who benefits from this. Yes, it could be random teen hacktivists getting bored but I would have thought the email of the Syrian President would be a bit above the skill set of your average spotty hacker, but maybe not past the level nation states could get past," Kernick said.

"So why not embarrass them publicly and expose details, to the benefit of your own nation state and blame it on Anonymous?" he questioned.

Kernick claimed that Anonymous are a group of loosely affiliated activists and ackers and almost anyone can claim to belong to the group, including nations with cruel and hostile governments. (ANI)