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.
During the Russo-Georgian War, a series of cyberattacks swamped and disabled websites of numerous South Ossetian, Georgian, Russian and Azerbaijani organisations. The attacks were initiated three weeks before the shooting war began.
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."
Emine Ayna, is a Turkish Kurd politician. She was a member of the former Democratic Society Party (DTP). She joined the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), after the Constitutional Court banned DTP on 11 December 2009.
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.
In 2013, there were two major sets of cyberattacks on South Korean targets attributed to elements within North Korea.
RedHack is a Turkish Marxist-Leninist computer hacker group founded in 1997. The group has claimed responsibility for hacking the websites of institutions which include the Council of Higher Education, Turkish police forces, the Turkish Army, Türk Telekom, and the National Intelligence Organization others. The group's core membership is said to be twelve. RedHack is the first hacker group which has been accused of being a terrorist organization and circa 2015 is one of the world's most wanted hacker groups.
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.
The Islamic State Hacking Division (ISHD) or The United Cyber Caliphate(UCC) is a merger of several hacker groups self-identifying as the digital army for the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS/ISIL). The unified organization comprises at least four distinct groups, including the Ghost Caliphate Section, Sons Caliphate Army (SCA), Caliphate Cyber Army (CCA), and the Kalashnikov E-Security Team. Other groups potentially involved with the United Cyber Caliphate are the Pro-ISIS Media group Rabitat Al-Ansar (League of Supporters) and the Islamic Cyber Army (ICA). Evidence does not support the direct involvement of the Islamic State leadership. It suggests external and independent coordination of Pro-ISIS cyber campaigns under the United Cyber Caliphate(UCC) name. Investigations also display alleged links to Russian Intelligence group, APT28, using the name as a guise to wage war against western nations.
Lazarus Group is a hacker group made up of an unknown number of individuals, alleged to be run by the government of North Korea. While not much is known about the Lazarus Group, researchers have attributed many cyberattacks to them since 2010. Originally a criminal group, the group has now been designated as an advanced persistent threat due to intended nature, threat, and wide array of methods used when conducting an operation. Names given by cybersecurity organizations include Hidden Cobra and ZINC or Diamond Sleet. According to North Korean defector Kim Kuk-song, the unit is internally known in North Korea as 414 Liaison Office.
Mirai is malware that turns networked devices running Linux into remotely controlled bots that can be used as part of a botnet in large-scale network attacks. It primarily targets online consumer devices such as IP cameras and home routers. The Mirai botnet was first found in August 2016 by MalwareMustDie, a white hat malware research group, and has been used in some of the largest and most disruptive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, including an attack on 20 September 2016 on computer security journalist Brian Krebs' website, an attack on French web host OVH, and the October 2016 DDoS attacks on Dyn. According to a chat log between Anna-senpai and Robert Coelho, Mirai was named after the 2011 TV anime series Mirai Nikki.
Ghost Squad Hackers ("GSH") is a hacktivist group responsible for several cyber attacks. Former targets of the group include central banks, Fox News, CNN, the United States Armed Forces and the government of Israel. The group is led by a de facto leader known as s1ege, and selects targets primarily for political reasons. The group forms a part of the hacktivist group Anonymous.
Deflect is a DDoS mitigation and website security service by eQualitie, a Canadian social enterprise developing open and reusable systems with a focus on privacy, resilience and self-determination, to protect and promote human rights and press freedom online.
Anonymous, a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective, has conducted numerous cyber-operations against Russia since February 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.
Killnet is a pro-Russia hacker group known for its DoS and DDoS attacks towards government institutions and private companies in several countries during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The group is thought to have been formed sometime around March 2022.
NoName057(16) is a pro-Russian hacker group that first declared itself in March 2022 and claimed responsibility for cyber-attacks on Ukrainian, American and European government agencies, media, and private companies. It is regarded as an unorganized and free pro-Russian activist group seeking to attract attention in Western countries.
Anonymous Sudan is a hacker group that has been active since mid-January 2023 and believed to have originated from Russia with no links to Sudan or Anonymous. They have launched a variety of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against targets.
