In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism, is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well as works to establish a "party brand". It organizes the Democratic National Convention held every four years to nominate a candidate for President of the United States and to formulate the party platform. While it provides support for party candidates, it does not have direct authority over elected officials. When a Democrat is president, the White House controls the Committee. According to Boris Heersink, "political scientists have traditionally described the parties’ national committees as inconsequential but impartial service providers."
SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution. SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application's software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.
Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, the loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political or ideological gains through threat or intimidation. Acts of deliberate, large-scale disruption of computer networks, especially of personal computers attached to the Internet by means of tools such as computer viruses, computer worms, phishing, malicious software, hardware methods, programming scripts can all be forms of internet terrorism. Cyberterrorism is a controversial term. Some authors opt for a very narrow definition, relating to deployment by known terrorist organizations of disruption attacks against information systems for the primary purpose of creating alarm, panic, or physical disruption. Other authors prefer a broader definition, which includes cybercrime. Participating in a cyberattack affects the terror threat perception, even if it isn't done with a violent approach. By some definitions, it might be difficult to distinguish which instances of online activities are cyberterrorism or cybercrime.
Cyberwarfare is the use of digital attacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting the vital computer systems. There is significant debate among experts regarding the definition of cyberwarfare, and even if such a thing exists. One view is that the term "cyberwarfare" is a misnomer, since no offensive cyber actions to date could be described as war. An alternative view is that "cyberwarfare" is a suitable label for cyber attacks which cause physical damage to people and objects in the real world.
The Internet has a long history of turbulent relations, major maliciously designed disruptions, and other conflicts. This is a list of known and documented Internet, Usenet, virtual community and World Wide Web related conflicts, and of conflicts that touch on both offline and online worlds with possibly wider reaching implications.
Anonymous is a decentralized international activist- and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.
Thomas Harold Massie is an American politician and businessman. A member of the Republican Party, Massie has been the United States representative for Kentucky's 4th congressional district since 2012, when he defeated Bill Adkins in the special and general elections. The district covers much of northeastern Kentucky, but is dominated by the Kentucky side of the Cincinnati area and Louisville's eastern suburbs.
Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm first uncovered in 2010 and thought to have been in development since at least 2005. Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and is believed to be responsible for causing substantial damage to the nuclear program of Iran. Although neither country has openly admitted responsibility, the worm is widely understood to be a cyberweapon built jointly by the United States and Israel in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games.
TeaMp0isoN was a computer security research group consisting of 3 to 5 core members. The group gained notoriety in 2011/2012 for its blackhat hacking activities, which included attacks on the United Nations, NASA, NATO, Facebook, Minecraft Pocket Edition Forums, and several other large corporations and government entities. TeaMp0isoN disbanded in 2012 following the arrests of some of its core members, "TriCk", and "MLT".
Anonymous is a decentralized virtual community. They are commonly referred to as an internet-based collective of hacktivists whose goals, like its organization, are decentralized. Anonymous seeks mass awareness and revolution against what the organization perceives as corrupt entities, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Anonymous has had a hacktivist impact. This is a timeline of activities reported to be carried out by the group.
The Syrian Electronic Army is a group of computer hackers which first surfaced online in 2011 to support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Using spamming, website defacement, malware, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks, it has targeted terrorist organizations, political opposition groups, western news outlets, human rights groups and websites that are seemingly neutral to the Syrian conflict. It has also hacked government websites in the Middle East and Europe, as well as US defense contractors. As of 2011 the SEA has been "the first Arab country to have a public Internet Army hosted on its national networks to openly launch cyber attacks on its enemies".
A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricted areas of the system without authorization, potentially with malicious intent. Depending on the context, cyberattacks can be part of cyber warfare or cyberterrorism. A cyberattack can be employed by sovereign states, individuals, groups, society, or organizations, and it may originate from an anonymous source. A product that facilitates a cyberattack is sometimes called a cyber weapon.
OpIsrael (#OpIsrael), is an annual coordinated cyber-attack where hacktivists attack Israeli government and even private websites with DDoS attacks and more. The inaugural campaign was launched in 2013 by Anonymous hackers on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The campaign has since been held annually.
Lizard Squad was a black hat hacking group, mainly known for their claims of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks primarily to disrupt gaming-related services.
Fancy Bear is a Russian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU. The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as security firms SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and Mandiant, have also said the group is sponsored by the Russian government. In 2018, an indictment by the United States Special Counsel identified Fancy Bear as GRU Unit 26165.
Pegasus is spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that can be covertly installed on mobile phones running most versions of iOS and Android. Pegasus is able to exploit iOS versions up to 14.6, through a zero-click exploit. As of 2022, Pegasus was capable of reading text messages, tracking calls, collecting passwords, location tracking, accessing the target device's microphone and camera, and harvesting information from apps. The spyware is named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. It is a Trojan horse computer virus that can be sent "flying through the air" to infect cell phones.
Rocket Kitten or the Rocket Kitten Group is a hacker group thought to be linked to the Iranian government. The threat actor group has targeted organizations and individuals in the Middle East, particularly Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran as well as the United States and Europe.
Ghost Squad Hackers or by the abbreviation "GSH" is a politically motivated hacktivist team responsible for conducting cyber attacks on central banks, Fox News and CNN, leaking sensitive data of the United States Armed Forces, leaking sensitive data of the Israeli government, hijacking Afghanistan's Chief Executive's Twitter account, and much more. Led by the administrative de facto leader known as s1ege. The group's prime intent and focus is embedded on anti-governmental and organization cyber protests within current involvements of media speculation and real life happenings in 2016 to present.They are also a team in and part of the hacktivist group Anonymous.
