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 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.
Cyberwarfare by Russia includes denial of service attacks, hacker attacks, dissemination of disinformation and propaganda, participation of state-sponsored teams in political blogs, internet surveillance using SORM technology, persecution of cyber-dissidents and other active measures. According to investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, some of these activities were coordinated by the Russian signals intelligence, which was part of the FSB and formerly a part of the 16th KGB department. An analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2017 outlines Russia's view of "Information Countermeasures" or IPb as "strategically decisive and critically important to control its domestic populace and influence adversary states", dividing 'Information Countermeasures' into two categories of "Informational-Technical" and "Informational-Psychological" groups. The former encompasses network operations relating to defense, attack, and exploitation and the latter to "attempts to change people's behavior or beliefs in favor of Russian governmental objectives."
The Jester is a self-identified grey hat hacktivist. He claims to be responsible for attacks on WikiLeaks and Islamist websites. He claims to be acting out of American patriotism.
LulzSec was a black hat computer hacking group that claimed responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from PlayStation Network in 2011. The group also claimed responsibility for taking the CIA website offline. Some security professionals have commented that LulzSec has drawn attention to insecure systems and the dangers of password reuse. It has gained attention due to its high profile targets and the sarcastic messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks. One of the founders of LulzSec was computer security specialist Hector Monsegur, who used the online moniker Sabu. He later helped law enforcement track down other members of the organization as part of a plea deal. At least four associates of LulzSec were arrested in March 2012 as part of this investigation. Prior, British authorities had announced the arrests of two teenagers they alleged were LulzSec members, going by the pseudonyms T-flow and Topiary.
Hector Xavier Monsegur, known also by the online pseudonym Sabu, is an American computer hacker and co-founder of the hacking group LulzSec. Monsegur became an informant for the FBI, working with the agency for over ten months to aid them in identifying the other hackers from LulzSec and related groups while facing a sentence of 124 years in prison. LulzSec intervened in the affairs of organizations such as News Corporation, Stratfor, UK and American law enforcement bodies and Irish political party Fine Gael.
Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin is a Russian politician who currently serves as the 10th Chairman of the State Duma since 2016. He is a former aide to President Vladimir Putin.
Anonymous is a decentralised 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.
Israeli Elite Force (iEF) is a hacktivism group founded two days before OpIsrael on April 5, 2013, that is responsible for multiple high-profile computer attacks and large scale online vandalism. Targets include ISPs, domain registrars, commercial websites, educational institutions, and government agencies. The group's core members are: mitziyahu, Buddhax, amenefus, bl4z3, r3str1ct3d, Mute, Cyb3rS74r, Oshrio, Aph3x, xxtr, Kavim, md5c, prefix, Cpt|Sparrow, gal-, gr1sha, nyxman and TheGodOfHell.
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. This refers to its unified Military Unit Number of the Russian army regiments. The headquarters of Fancy Bear and the entire military unit, which reportedly specializes in state-sponsored cyberattacks and decryption of hacked data, were targeted by Ukrainian drones on July 24, 2023, the rooftop on an adjacent building collapsed as a result of the explosion.
In October 2016, Ukrainian hacker group CyberHunta leaked over a gigabyte of emails and other documents alleged to belong to Russian political operative and senior Kremlin official Vladislav Surkov. Known as Russia's "grey cardinal", Surkov served as a political adviser to President Vladimir Putin in the conflict in eastern Ukraine and is the architect of Russia's ideology of sovereign democracy.
The Mikhailov Case refers to an espionage scandal surrounding the activities of the Center of Information Security (CIS) of FSB, whose employees were implicated in high treason after participating in a number of high-profile criminal cases. January 31, 2017 was arrested that the head of the 2nd department of the CIS Sergei Mikhailov (FSB) and his deputy Dmitry Dokuchaev In the same case, the head of the department of investigation of computer incidents of Kaspersky Lab Ruslan Stoyanov and Georgy Fomchenkov were arrested. The men were convicted of giving information to American private sector researcher Kimberly Zenz, but Zenz herself was never charged, and her requests to testify for the defense were ignored.
Sergei Mikhailov was deputy head of the FSB security agency’s Center for Information Security. In February 2019, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison for treason.
Vladimir Fedorovich Anikeyev is the former ringleader of the anonymous group Shaltai Boltai. He was detained in Russia in November 2016, and was later sentenced to two years in prison for unlawful access to computer information.
Alexander Olegovich Glazastikov is a Russian co-founder of the anonymous group Shaltai Boltai. In 2017, he applied for political asylum in Estonia. In October 2018, he was arrested in absentia in Russia.
Dmitry Aleksandrovich Dokuchaev is a Russian convicted cyber criminal and a former intelligence officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the principal security agency of Russia. In April 2019, he was sentenced to six years in prison for treason.
Kimberly Zenz is a cybersecurity research with an emphasis on the RuNet. Her work experience includes RuNet researcher at Verisign iDefense and Head of Threat Intelligence at the Deutsche Cyber-Sicherheitsorganisation. In 2019, a Moscow court reportedly accused her of passing along information of interest to the Russian government to U.S. intelligence officials. Zenz refuted these accusations and repeatedly requested to testify. The court ignored her request and did not permit her to testify.
