While all eyes are on Anonymous (a group reputed to have its own PR division), TeaMp0isoN are also pushing into the spotlight with their own cyber-pillaging efforts.

There is no doubt that Anonymous are the Keyser Söze of the hackersphere whereby the majority of hackers label themselves with that umbrella term, but TeaMp0isoN are making waves of their own: 

  • In November 2011, they hacked and leaked the details of one hundred usernames, email addresses and passwords belonging to individuals at the United Nations, UNICEF and World Health Organisation.
  • In June 2011, they hacked and leaked personal information belonging to numerous members of Parliament who backed the war in Iraq, including Tony Blair.

Their motives clearly appear politically based given the above “hits”, and they are now stating that they have attacked MI6 in retaliation for their accusations of terrorism acts towards apparently innocent parties.  The attack was using a method that has been seen fairly often – a Denial of Service attack.  However, rather than resort to the skiddie method of LOIC or other such primitive applications, they hijacked an off-shore server and launched a script which bombarded the MI6 office phone for a continuous 24 hours.  The volume of calls effectively caused a denial of service for both incoming and outgoing callers on the line.

Quite what the effect of this phone DoS will be on MI6 is unclear, but it is a novel disruption method and is demonstrative of a group which evidently “thinks outside of the box”.