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This is a partial list of notable hacker groups.
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.
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, and 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.
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.
Jeremy Hammond, alias sup_g, is an American anarchist activist and former computer hacker from Chicago. He founded the computer security training website HackThisSite in 2003. He was first imprisoned over the Protest Warrior hack in 2005 and was later convicted of computer fraud in 2013 for hacking the private intelligence firm Stratfor and releasing data to WikiLeaks, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier is a 1997 book by Suelette Dreyfus, researched by Julian Assange. It describes the exploits of a group of Australian, American, and British black hat hackers during the late 1980s and early 1990s, among them Assange himself.
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.
Operation Payback was a coordinated, decentralized group of attacks on high-profile opponents of Internet piracy by Internet activists using the "Anonymous" moniker. Operation Payback started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites; piracy proponents then decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents. The initial reaction snowballed into a wave of attacks on major pro-copyright and anti-piracy organizations, law firms, and individuals. The Motion Picture Association of America, the Pirate Party UK and United States Pirate Party criticised the attacks.
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.
HBGary is a subsidiary company of ManTech International, focused on technology security. In the past, two distinct but affiliated firms had carried the HBGary name: HBGary Federal, which sold its products to the US Government, and HBGary, Inc. Its other clients included information assurance companies, computer emergency response teams, and computer forensic investigators. On 29 February 2012, HBGary, Inc. announced it had been acquired by IT services firm ManTech International. At the same time, HBGary Federal was reported to be closed.
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.
We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists is a 2012 documentary film about the workings and beliefs of the self-described "hacktivist" collective, Anonymous.
Cyberweapons are commonly defined as malware agents employed for military, paramilitary, or intelligence objectives as part of a cyberattack. This includes computer viruses, trojans, spyware, and worms that can introduce malicious code into existing software, causing a computer to perform actions or processes unintended by its operator.
On October 21, 2016, three consecutive distributed denial-of-service attacks were launched against the Domain Name System (DNS) provider Dyn. The attack caused major Internet platforms and services to be unavailable to large swathes of users in Europe and North America. The groups Anonymous and New World Hackers claimed responsibility for the attack, but scant evidence was provided.
Hack Forums is an Internet forum dedicated to discussions related to hacker culture and computer security. The website ranks as the number one website in the "Hacking" category in terms of web-traffic by the analysis company Alexa Internet. The website has been widely reported as facilitating online criminal activity, such as the case of Zachary Shames, who was arrested for selling keylogging software on Hack Forums in 2013 which was used to steal personal information.
Distributed Denial of Secrets, abbreviated DDoSecrets, is a non-profit whistleblower site founded in 2018 for news leaks. The site is a frequent source for other news outlets and has worked on investigations including Cyprus Confidential with other media organisations. In December 2023, the organisation said it had published over 100 million files from 59 countries.
Emma Best is an American investigative reporter and whistleblower. They gained national attention for their work with WikiLeaks and activist Julian Assange. Best is known for prolific filing of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on behalf of MuckRock and co-founding the whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) which resulted in Best being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security and temporarily banned from filing FOIA requests.
Anonymous, a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective, has conducted numerous cyber-operations against Russia since February 2022 when the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
Assange's youthful hacker name was Mendax ('lying'), allegedly from Horace's phrase 'splendide mendax,' or 'nobly lying'.