Irish Hacking Suspect Freed in Wake of FBI Sting

By Shawn Pogatchnik

Dublin -  An Irish computer hacker accused of breaking into the email account of Ireland's top cybersecurity cop, then using its contents to eavesdrop on American and British anti-hacking detectives, was released without charges Wednesday.

Irish police said they were preparing a new evidence file for state prosecutors to use against Donncha O Cearbhaill. He's been arrested and released once before over alleged hacking attacks in Ireland last year.

FBI affidavits identified the 19-year-old Trinity College chemistry student as the Internet infiltrator responsible for recording and posting online a Jan. 17 trans-Atlantic conference call between American and British anti-hacking detectives.

The U.S. District Court in Manhattan, acting on FBI affidavits, issued indictments Tuesday against O Cearbhaill, two Britons, another Irishman and a Chicago man over their alleged role in a string of cyber attacks on several U.S. agencies and companies committed by an Anonymous hacker subgroup called Lulz Security, or LulzSec. The FBI built its case using the hackers' alleged leader, Sabu, as a turncoat informant who drew out incriminating online admissions from the others.

Hackers claiming allegiance to the amorphous Anonymous movement offered a defiant reply Wednesday by defacing dozens of Web sites connected to Internet defense firm Panda Security. The Anonymous activists justified their attacks citing Panda's links to law enforcement. The Bilbao, Spain-based company said its main site wasn't compromised.

Hackers from Anonymous also said they knocked out the Vatican's Web site Wednesday afternoon in a broad protest against Catholic doctrine, past and present, as well as the chronic cover-up of child abuse by clergy.

O Cearbhaill walked free from Terenure police station in south Dublin after a 24-hour interrogation period, the maximum permitted under Irish law for suspected hacking crimes.

Such releases are typical in Ireland, where state prosecutors can take months, even years, to mull whether to file charges.

He made no public comments following his release. His father John Carroll, a councilman in rural County Offaly, also declined comment.

The other Irish citizen indicted, Galway university student Darren Martyn, remained free Wednesday and conversed freely with followers on his Twitter account, in which he describes himself as a reformed "blackhat," slang for a criminal hacker.

Martyn said the FBI had got his age wrong — he's also just 19, not 25 — and he intended to keep working on his own Internet and school projects in expectation of potentially imminent arrest. He declined AP requests for an interview.

The U.S. court has indicted Martyn on two counts of hacking, with a potential 10-year prison sentence for each count, while O Cearbhaill faces one count of hacking and one count of disclosing an unlawfully intercepted wire communication, offenses that combined carry a maximum 15-year sentence.

Irish police arrested both O Cearbhaill and Martyn in September after their online noms de guerre claimed responsibility for a hacking attack on the Web site of Fine Gael, the major political party in Ireland's government. They were both released and files of evidence prepared for their potential prosecution, but they have yet to be charged over the Fine Gael attack.

According to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent George Schultzel, O Cearbhaill decided to crack the email codes of his recent police captors.

While Schultzel doesn't identify them by name, he testified that O Cearbhaill was able to crack into the private email accounts of two detectives in the Irish police's Computer Crime Investigation Unit, including its commander — and found a security gold mine because both detectives had been forwarding security-sensitive emails from their police accounts.

The FBI said it seized records of both Irish detectives' email accounts and found they'd been illegally accessed 146 times.

The affidavit reports that O Cearbhaill told his LulzSec contact Sabu Jan. 9 he had "just got into the iCloud for the head of a national cybercrime unit. I have all his contacts and can track his location 24/7." In a footnote, Schultzel identifies O Cearbhaill's target as the Irish police's cybercrime supervisor.

The Associated Press requested an interview Wednesday with the Computer Crime Investigation Unit's director, Detective Inspector Paul Gillen. He and the police force declined the request, citing their ongoing investigation.

The FBI affidavit suggests Gillen shipped a key email from the FBI — listing the invited officials and phone passwords for their Jan. 17 conference call — from his police email account to his private one.

The 15-minute discussion, and the list of security officials, both were leaked on to the Internet. In one telling moment, an FBI official asked about progress on investigating the two Irish hackers, O Cearbhaill and Martyn: "Is anyone on from Ireland?" Silence followed.

Internet security experts said they found it hard to believe that the head of a nation's cybersecurity unit would ship such a sensitive email to a poorly protected private account, then not bother to participate in the conference call.

"It's obviously deeply embarrassing," said Graham Cluley, a technology consultant for data security company Sophos. "It's a boo-boo. I would hope that more sensitive information isn't being shared via his personal account."

FBI: Irish Nisstep Led to Conference Call Leak

By Raphael Satter

London - An Irish police officer's email blunder led to the spectacular leak of a sensitive conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard, U.S. law enforcement said Tuesday.

An indictment unsealed in a New York court alleges that a teenager linked to the Lulz Security group of hackers was able to eavesdrop on the call after an unnamed officer with Ireland's national police force forwarded a work message to his insecure personal email account.

The email, which apparently originated from the FBI's Timothy Lauster, invited dozens of law enforcement officers from across Europe and the United States to coordinate their efforts against LulzSec and its amorphous umbrella group, Anonymous.

The FBI's indictment said that 19-year-old Donncha O'Cearrbhail intercepted the email and used the information in it to access and secretly record the Jan. 17 call, which hackers subsequently broadcast across the Internet.

The indictment said O'Cearrbhail was charged with one count of computer hacking conspiracy, and one count of intentionally disclosing an unlawfully intercepted wire communication.

O'Cearrbhail was one of five people charged in a multinational operation targeting hackers linked to Lulz Security. His indictment was unsealed on Tuesday as authorities revealed the group's ringleader had secretly become an FBI informant and turned against his comrades.

A spokesman for the Irish police, known as the Garda Siochana, refused to comment either on the details of the O'Cearrbhail charge or on the nature of the email blunder.

There appear to be only two Garda-linked names in Lauster's email: Paul Gillen and Colm Gallagher.

Neither officer returned messages seeking comment.

Spanish Authorities Arrest Anonymous Activists

Madrid - Police say they have arrested four suspected hackers allied to the loose-knit Anonymous movement in connection with attacks on Spanish political party websites.

A National Police statement said two servers used by the group in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been blocked.

It said the four included the alleged manager of Anonymous' computer operations in Spain and Latin America, who was identified only by his initials and the aliases "Thunder" and "Pacotron."

The four are suspected of defacing websites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks and publishing data on police assigned to the royal palace and the premier's office online.

Tuesday's statement said the arrests were part of an Interpol operation.

Infragard Latest Victim of Anonymous

Once again FuckFBIFriday has proven to be a thorn in the side of governments, corporate, and law enforcement groups.  This time the victim is the Ohio chapter of Infragard, a result of government-private businesses coming together to fight crime.

Here is a mirror.

Along with this hack comes another one aimed at GeoGroup.Visitors to the site were welcomed with the song "Mumia 911", a song that's an homage to Mumia Abu Jamal.

Anonymous said the hack was "Part of our ongoing efforts to dismantle the prison-industrial complex" while an organization linked to the company, to which calls were routed, chose not to discuss the incident according to the Associated Press.

Hackers Claim Attack on American Tear Gas Company

United States/Egypt - A U.S. security company whose tear gas has been used against Egyptian demonstrators has become the latest victim of the Anonymous movement, hackers claimed Tuesday.

In a statement posted to the Internet, hackers claimed to have broken into Combined Systems Inc.'s website and stolen personal information belonging to clients and employees of the Jamestown, Pennsylvania-based firm. They accused the company of being run by war profiteers who sell "mad chemical weapons to militaries and cop shops around the world."

The hackers' claims could not immediately be verified, although the company's website was down Tuesday.

Messages left for Combined Systems executives Donald Smith and Jacob Kravel went unreturned. A customer service representative said senior employees were unavailable for comment because they were in a meeting.

Anonymous has claimed a series of Web attacks worldwide and has increasingly focused on security companies, law enforcement and governmental organizations. The group has often worked in tandem with the Occupy protest movement in the U.S. and has expressed solidarity with the pro-democracy activists across the Arab world.

Anonymous said it had targeted Combined Systems because it was supplying weaponry used "to repress our revolutionary movements."

It published a series of what it claimed were intercepted emails, one of which appeared to be a warning that Combined Systems' site had been sabotaged, but the messages' authenticity could also not be confirmed.

Combined Systems says it sells a variety of crowd control devices — including aerosol grenades, sprays and handcuffs — to law enforcement and military organizations across the world. Journalists and activists have reported finding the company's tear gas canisters at Egypt's Tahrir Square, where authorities have repeatedly cracked down on demonstrators with deadly force.

Last year human rights group Amnesty International said that Combined Systems had delivered some 46 tons of ammunition — including chemical irritants and tear gas — to the Egyptian government in three separate shipments.

Amnesty has asked the U.S. government to stop the shipments, which it said should be suspended "until there is certainty that tear gas and other munitions, weaponry or other equipment aren't linked to bloodshed on Egyptian streets."

Anonymous indicated that its attack had been timed to coincide the one-year anniversary of the uprising in Bahrain, the Gulf country hardest hit by upheaval during the so-called "Arab Spring" protests that began last year.

The main Bahrain government website was down for about an hour early Tuesday, but later appeared to be functioning normally. It wasn't clear whether the problem stemmed from any kind of cyberattack.

Anonymous Hacks FBI/Scotland Yard Calls

United States/Great Britain - Like a scene from a movie, the FBI and Scotland Yard were shown to be fools when it comes to hacking groups.

Anonymous, the infamous hacking group which has taken on credit card companies, cybersecurity firms, the Church of Scientology, and even the music industry, has taken on two of the world's top investigative agencies and won.

A 15 minute long recording has been released which revealed a plan to track and prosecute the collective hacking group and another, the lesser-known LulzSec.  Saying the hack "was intended for law enforcement officers only and was illegally obtained [and] a criminal investigation is under way to identify and hold accountable those responsible," the FBI has said it is unsure exactly how the hack happened.

It seems Anonymous somehow intercepted an email from an FBI agent to other law enforcement agencies throughout the world, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France.

So what's the conservation about? In case you don't have time to listen to it, it's about 15 minutes, I will sum it up for you.  They talk about two people who are supposedly linked to Anonymous - British citizens Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis - and the details they gathered against them and a few other unnamed suspects.

Anonymous Exposes Intelligence Gap

 Bu Loz Kaye

Over Christmas a busy, secretive group were at work, with their own views on who had been naughty and nice. However it was not Santa's elves, but the amorphous "Anonymous" collective making the decisions. This group of hackers released a vast trove of email addresses, passwords and credit card information belonging to subscribers of the US intelligence company Stratfor – and the hangover has carried on into the new year, with the release of MoD and Nato officials' details.

Stratfor, an authority on strategic and tactical intelligence issues, is considered by some to be a "shadow CIA", and provides intelligence analysis and both private and public briefings on all manner of issues. The release by Anonymous kicked off discussion about how such a breach was possible at a high-profile company specialising in all things security, as well as why it had attracted the attention of Anonymous.

 Many of the thousands of email addresses and personal details belonged to people in sensitive posts within the defence and intelligence communities. Although the publication of email addresses (hardly state secrets) is not a threat in itself, their disclosure can only be extremely embarrassing for a company selling itself as an expert on security, while the release of passwords adds to the alarm.

But it is a mistake to talk of Anonymous's motives as if it were a cohesive whole. The group is a loose collection of people with different aims, involving themselves in different "operations" as they see fit. It is leaderless, it doesn't have a manifesto, it doesn't have a particular direction, nor does it go in only one direction at any one time. Given that membership of Anonymous is based entirely on self-identification, it seems that the only real way of assessing the group as a whole is on the basis of the kinds of actions it carries out. It is essentially a banner under which hacktivists and tech-savvy individuals with a political or social agenda can rally.

So why attack Stratfor? Well, as Anonymous put it, "to wreak unholy havok [sic] upon the systems and personal email accounts of these rich and powerful oppressors. Kill, kitties, kill and burn them down … peacefully. XD XD." Yet, despite the mischievous way it expresses itself, a significant portion of Anonymous's focus is political. It's not just about lulz or showing off any more. The point of these actions is to draw attention to how companies such as Stratfor, or organisations such as Nato are, in its view, "holders of power in a world that has long been governed in accordance with the dictate that might makes right".
The various Anonymous communication channels, and supporters, would point to what they see as moves in the US to restrict liberty, from the Bradley Manning case to the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act, which will give unprecedented web censorship powers; from the treatment of Occupy protesters to the National Defence Authorisation Act opening up indefinite detention without trial. You don't need to be a hacker to think that the US is more deserving of a restraining order than a special relationship.

On this side of the Atlantic a recent government report on what it insists on calling "cyber" security, names hacktivism explicitly as a threat to national security. Yet nowhere is it made clear in the objectives of that report what the Ministry of Defence or Home Office are actually supposed to do about it. The omission may be sinister or merely incompetent. But as the Nato and MoD leaks highlight the porous nature of our online defences, taxpayers are entitled to ask what we are getting for the £650m the national cyber security programme costs. Or maybe not – after all, the lion's share of the spending is going to GCHQ and is secret. For now.

I have pointed out before that if people feel that the usual democratic routes are pointless they will find means of direct action and protest. Many balk at Anonymous's apparent disregard for the potential human collateral in their methods – but there is no denying that its mix of satire and activism is a powerful combination.

As I am writing this, Stratfor's website reads: "Stratfor Global Intelligence. As you may know, an unauthorised party illegally obtained and disclosed personally identifiable information … of some of our subscribers." It looks laughably unintelligent. In one fell swoop it exposes an uncomfortable truth that cyber-security experts would have us pay through the nose to ignore: as long as western governments fail to live up to their ideals and ours, there will always remain those who are equally determined and able to expose their secrets and embarrass those in power. The lulz just got serious.

Israel Announces Hackers Are Terrorists

Israel - Following the humiliating cyber-attack launched against Israel and the scandal around it comes a response from the country: You will be treated as a terrorist.

Much like what the United States announced late last year, the country – prey to a massive hack which leaked more than 400-thousand credit cards with the supposed intention of disrupting the banking system – seems to leave no options off the table.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said whatever actions Israel takes is “It is necessary to send a message to everyone who attacks or tries to attack Israel, including in cyberspace. [Hackers] are putting themselves in danger and that they will not benefit from any immunity against reprisal actions from Israel.”

A blogger claims to have discerned the person who is responsible for the banking hack, a Saudi going by the name of 0x0mar. In response the supposed hacker released a statement saying he is not Omar Habib and to “Come and get me”.  Here is a report from Israeli National News.

So what do you think this means? Do you think this will just provoke future hackers to try their luck? What about the group Anonymous? How can you possibly hit a target that has no one set nation, age, sex, or background?

Anonymous Releases Information on Passers of NDAA

United States of America - For those of you who didn't know, the National Defense Authorization Act passed the Senate with a shocking 86-13 vote (one seemed to abstain).  In retaliation Anonymous did a massive dump of information on every one of the Senators who approved the bill.  Hopefully the ensuing chaos sure to hit them will cause the people in power to try to make amends for their transgressions.

Anonymous Declares War

The Mexican drug cartel known as the Zetas has been threated with war by Anonymous. The group says their reaction was triggered by an abduction of a hacker. Anonymous has announced it will release thousands of names of the people connected to the Mexican gang. The hackers said they've got their hands on 25-thousand emails from the Mexican government. Called OpCartel, the plan is then to out people with ties to the Zetas. They have at least 75 people's names ready to be released.

To any possibly new Anons. You are warned to stay out of this one.