Dubai: No one is below the radar of Anonymous particularly; they simply choose targets based on the latest events. We could certainly see more focus on the Gulf from Anonymous in the future.
“Anonymous has participated in Arab Spring in Bahrain. They were very active when it came to Arab Spring,” Nicolai Solling, Director Technology Services of help AG Middle East, said.
There have been attacks against organisations in the Gulf, particularly those involved with petrochemical. There have been a wider range of attacks blamed on Anonymous, but it has been difficult to identify if this was accurate, given a lack of alignment to a visible operation.
“It is difficult to truly predict the nature of an Anonymous strike given their decentralised nature and lack of traditional leadership hierarchy. They have been known to “target governments, large enterprises and even small business or individuals alike. That said, previous commentary would imply a focus on oil and gas in the Gulf,” James Lyne, Director of Technology Strategy at Sophos, said.
At the end of the day, Solling said “what Anonymous does is that they work in number of different ways. What they do is they change the content of a website, which means they look for vulnerability of a website publishing structure and they would place a different message on it. Another thing which Anonymous is very active on is data leaks. They will go in and hack the data out of website and publish the details and launch DDOS attacks.”
Normal users should not be worried about Anonymous. They are a big concern for government entities and very big corporations. They are not driven by financial gains. They are not like cyber criminals.
“They have a normal work and they do it for hobby. Many of its members were caught by federal authorities. It is difficult to pinpoint an Anonymous group as some may have participated in the chat rooms or political activates. Its members can be distinguished by the wearing of stylised Guy Fawkes masks,” Solling said.
