Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.
In computing, a denial-of-service attack is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network. Denial of service is typically accomplished by flooding the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled. The range of attacks varies widely, spanning from inundating a server with millions of requests to slow its performance, overwhelming a server with a substantial amount of invalid data, to submitting requests with an illegitimate IP address.
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.
goatse.cx, often spelled without the .cx top-level domain as Goatse, is an internet domain that originally housed an Internet shock site. Its front page featured a picture entitled hello.jpg, showing a close-up of a hunched-over naked man using both hands to stretch open his anus and expose his red rectum lit by the camera flash.
Phishing is a form of social engineering and scam where attackers deceive people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware such as ransomware. Phishing attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and often transparently mirror the site being targeted, allowing the attacker to observe everything while the victim is navigating the site, and transverse any additional security boundaries with the victim. As of 2020, it is the most common type of cybercrime, with the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting more incidents of phishing than any other type of computer crime.
Sherman Martin Austin is an American anarchist and musician who was arrested for inflammatory content on his website and subsequently convicted. He was the first person to be successfully prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. 842(p), a United States federal law which makes the distribution of information on explosives unlawful if the information is provided with the knowledge or intent that the information will be used to commit a violent federal crime. Austin was convicted under a plea agreement in 2002 and served a one-year sentence in federal prison. Some academics and activists, including Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, protested the prosecution of Austin.
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.
A security hacker is someone who explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, information gathering, challenge, recreation, or evaluation of a system weaknesses to assist in formulating defenses against potential hackers.
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.
globalHell was an American hacker group. They were one of the first hacking groups who gained notoriety for website defacements and breaches. The combined losses caused by the group were estimated to be ranged between $1.5m and $2.5m. The group was called a "cybergang" as it had many of the same characteristics of a gang and carried out the same activities as a gang, including trafficking in stolen credit card numbers.
Dennis Michael Moran, also known by his alias Coolio, was an American computer hacker from Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, who was accused in February 2000 of a series of denial-of-service attacks that shut down some of the most popular websites on the Internet. He was 17 years old when he committed the attacks. He was later arrested and pleaded guilty to defacing the websites of Drug Abuse Resistance Education and RSA Security, as well as unauthorized access of the U.S. Army and Air Force computer systems at four military bases. Moran died of a drug overdose in 2013.
The Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) are an internet trolling group. They targeted several prominent websites and internet personalities including Slashdot, Wikipedia, CNN, Barack Obama, Alex Jones, and prominent members of the blogosphere. They also released software products, and leaked screenshots and information about upcoming operating systems. In addition, they maintained a software repository and a wiki-based site dedicated to internet commentary.
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.
World of Hell was a grey hat computer hacker group that claims to be responsible for several high-profile attacks in the year 2001. It gained attention due to its high-profile targets and the lighthearted messages it has posted in the aftermath of its attacks.
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".
NullCrew was a hacktivist group founded in 2012 that took responsibility for multiple high-profile computer attacks against corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies.
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.
The 2013 Singapore cyberattacks were a series of cyberattacks initiated by the hacktivist organisation Anonymous, conducted partly in response to web censorship regulations in Singapore. A member of Anonymous, known by the online handle "The Messiah", claimed responsibility for spearheading the attacks. On 12 November 2013, James Raj was charged in a Singapore court as the alleged "Messiah".
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.
