Quite The Busy Group
In the CIA attack, the group packet-flooded the agency’s website and brought it down for a short period on Wednesday. Some reports referred to the attack as the group’s biggest yet — which it technically is not, though the target is certainly the most prominent.
LulzSec had hacked the US Government once before: attackers associated with the group broke into the US Senate web server earlier this week and posted the site’s directory structure on its website.
While the CIA attack may have been nothing more than a denial-of-service attack, it certainly could carry repercussions for the group. Messing with government computers is a federal offense, and military officials have already pondered considering cyberattacks “acts of war.”
LulzSec has also released the emails and passwords of about 62,000 email users, although how it got this information is unknown. One could surmise that this is a list of compiled information from previous hacks the group has undertaken, but nobody knows for sure.
The file is about 2.25MB in size and available from download site Mediafire. Already some users on the list have reported being attacked, according to media reports.
LulzSec, You’ve Gone Too Far
But is it a step too far? The fact is, LulzSec has now moved from a group that got its kicks out of picking on Sony and others with simple hacks that didn’t affect the everyday person, to a legitimate threat to every Internet user’s security.
I believe they have crossed the line. It is not funny at all to expose somebody’s personal details on the Internet just for your own pleasure. If you’re going to hack with a purpose, hey, that’s great. But LulzSec isn’t.
Plus the sheer stupidity to start going after government targets and not expect to get caught, well, that’s a whole other story in and of itself. LulzSec should take some lessons from Anonymous, whose members are increasingly being hunted — and arrested — by law enforcement.
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