Operation Payback is the brainchild of a shadow organization called "Anonymous" that has released a cyber battle in defense of WikiLeaks. Anonymous "hacktivists" attacked MasterCard and Visa Wed, shortly after those businesses quit processing donations made to WikiLeaks through their websites. Operation Payback works via a relatively small number of people recruited by Anonymous that sign up for a voluntary botnet by downloading software designed to choke offending servers with an overload of traffic.
Operation Payback leaving lots of Distributed denial of service hacktivism
Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is going on with the hacktivism of Operation Payback. A free download of an assault tool called LOIC is being offered by the hacker group Anonymous who’s saying anyone with a computer and the web should become a "hacktivist" as soon as possible. You are able to link your computer to a voluntary botnet with the LOIC attack tool. This means any targeted site will get more information than it can handle. Thursday morning it was noted that the LOIC had already been downloaded too often. Over 31,000 downloads occurred. There was a shut down Wed for sites like MasterCard and Visa. The LOIC botnet was responsible for the Distributed denial of service attacks. “MasterCard is an evil puppet of the U.S. govt," is what Anonymous hacktivists changed the MasterCard Wikipedia entry to say.
Anonymous guards WikiLeaks
Other DDoS attacks were put on the Church of Scientology, Gene Simmons of KISS and any law firms suing pirates of music and video from Anonymous. About 1,000 mirror online websites where WikiLeaks copies could be found were created by Anonymous along with releasing the LOIC attack tool. The hacktivist group is also distributing WikiLeaks content on “dark nets,” heavily encrypted layers of the web where data can be accessed without being traced. The next target for Anonymous is rumored to be Amazon.com, which pulled WikiLeaks off its U.S. machines last week at the request of the federal govt.
An anonymous, solid enemy
Operation Payback is an easy attack to launch. It doesn't cost much either. Defending against Distributed denial of service attacks is difficult and costly. A business that is large can pay $10,000 a month for an excellent cyber security system. This is intended to stop them from happening. Cyber security experts said Operation Payback attacks have been relatively small so far–less than 10 gigabits per second of data. To make the attacks difficult to defend against, Anonymous consistently rotates the computers from which the assault is coming. Operation Payback itself was the victim of a counterattack Wed that shut down many of its sites.
Citations
NPR
marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/12/08/pm-hacktivism-can-be-pricey-for-businesses/
ABC News
abcnews.go.com/US/operation-payback-anonymous-cyber-battle-erupts-wikileaks/story?id=12351428
BBC News
bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11957367
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