March 6, 2012
March 6, 2012. New York. The underground rebel hacking community was shocked today when it was announced that one of the movement’s most active, vocal and criminally instigative leaders is actually a federal informant. Working for the US government since his arrest and sealed guilty plea 8 months ago, the informant has been documented throughout the internet insighting crimes and other computer-based attacks ever since. Strangely enough, Whiteout Press predicted three days ago that this exact event would transpire.
A main cell of the LulzSec rebel hacker group was infiltrated, leading to the arrests of 5 high-level activists.
Announced by ABC News today but credited to Fox News, the report detailed a 28 year-old American named Hector Monsegur who goes by the name ‘Sabu’. Authorities unsealed the man’s August 2011 guilty plea and confirmed that the LulzSec leader named Sabu has been working for US law enforcement since that time. Officials describe the hacker base as a Manhattan apartment complex.
So far, US authorities have confirmed that information obtained through Sabu’s ongoing cooperation and infiltration of his fellow hackers had led to the arrests of 5 of the most prominent and sophisticated hackers in the world. Of the six total arrests, including the informant Sabu in Manhattan, one was taken into custody in Chicago and the other four were overseas. Authorities also confirmed that they were originally tipped off to the activities of Sabu through an anonymous tip.
LulzSec devastated
Anonymous, which has become a loosely affiliated network of thousands of individual hack-tivist cells including cells of LulzSec and AntiSec, is obviously taking a huge hit by the arrests of these tech-savvy individuals. Based on the criminal attacks and thefts being pinned on the 6 individuals by multinational authorities, it’s clear that this group from LulzSec is one of the A-teams of the global hacker movement.
Whether or not authorities have evidence that the individuals arrested today are responsible for the specific crimes detailed in their announcement is unclear. Officials did however list a number of recent headline-catching crimes, as well as the motives and methods each attack was carried out with. Officials said that recent cyber-attacks on credit card companies were in response to those companies freezing Wikileaks’ transactions.
One crime specifically assigned to the individuals arrested today is the attack on the corporate-sponsored, government-backed cyber mercenary corporation called Stratfor. The Defense Dept’s version of Anonymous, Stratfor proved no match for those pesky kids. LulzSec, according to documents unsealed today by US officials, is charged with stealing credit card information from Stratfor employees and fraudulently charging $700,000 in illegal purchases and donations, among other crimes.
Crediting Fox News with breaking the story today, the same ABC News report confirmed that Sabu, the US government informant leading LulzSec, has been one of the most prominent instigators of crime in the cyber community. The network produced one of Sabu’s calls to action from as recently as yesterday, “The federal government is run by a bunch of f*****g cowards. Don’t give in to these people. Fight back. Stay strong.”
Anonymous and LulzSec should subscribe to Whiteout Press
Perhaps if members of Anonymous and LulzSec subscribed to Whiteout Press, they would have seen this coming. Only three days ago, we published the article titled, ‘Anonymous Cell gets Careless, Infiltrated, Busted’.
We began our prediction with the words, “For anyone who’s lived this personally in a past life or who’s seen this movie before…” For at the time, we had no evidence or proof other than our hard earned experience. But that experience told us one thing. Global government agencies had already infiltrated Anonymous, LulzSec and the other hack-tivist groups. Whiteout Press summed up the warning saying, “This author can think of only three reasons why any highly active member of the above Anonymous cells would not have been arrested – they agreed to work for authorities, they are the authorities, or they’re really lucky.”
Plainly and simply however, here is the exact prediction Whiteout Press made – a prediction proven true with today’s series of arrests:
“Sooner or later, if it hasn’t already, Phase 2 will kick in and along with arresting Anonymous members, officials will coerce them into working as informants. Then, authorities can simply sit back and collect information on hundreds, if not thousands, of activists. Working side by side with their new informants, agents will insincerely submerse themselves within the movement, often reaching even leadership positions.”
While Anonymous has hundreds of underground cells, if not thousands, LulzSec was the A-team of cyber-hackers. And with 6 arrests today, immediately following the 25 arrests last week, it looks like the empire is striking back. Will Anonymous and its young rebel forces be able to endure? Stay tuned…
For more information, read any of the following recent Whiteout Press articles:
Anonymous Cell gets Careless, Infiltrated, Busted
Anonymous Launches new Offensive
Anonymous Strikes Back and Digs in
Cyber Group Anonymous Busted
