What is the hacker col­lec­tive Anonymous?

Anonymous pop­u­lar­ized so-called hack­tivism, i.e. hacking for political or social reasons. At the start, however, the hacker col­lec­tive primarily drew attention to itself with mass pranks. What actions are at­trib­uted to Anonymous, what goals does the as­so­ci­a­tion pursue today, and what’s the mask all about?

Anonymous (ancient Greek for “unnamed”, “without a name”) is a col­lec­tive of activists raising awareness of freedom of speech and the in­de­pen­dence of the Internet, and copyright law through protest actions since 2008. In the process, certain writers, various or­ga­ni­za­tions, state au­thor­i­ties and global cor­po­ra­tions became targets. Their means of action are primarily cy­ber­at­tacks and public demon­stra­tions, and in both cases, the activists remain anonymous. Con­se­quent­ly, the specific in­di­vid­u­als behind the col­lec­tive are unknown, both to the public and to the criminal au­thor­i­ties, who are in­ves­ti­gat­ing their pre­dom­i­nant­ly illegal actions.

Only in­di­vid­ual arrests have given a face to Anonymous in recent years. The best-known rev­e­la­tion of members can be traced back to the hacker group LulzSec, which was busted in 2012. Its co-founder Hector Monsegur and members Jeremy Hammond and Mustafa Al-Bassam belonged to Anonymous.

Anonymous’ goals are very diverse and varied. First, its protest actions used to be aimed at banning the Church of Sci­en­tol­ogy and its fa­cil­i­ties and practices. Denial-of-service attacks on the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s websites were combined with prank calls and public protests. Anonymous aims to harm its chosen target in a direct manner. The group uses its ca­pa­bil­i­ties to steal and leak sensitive data, which is referred to as doxing.

Anonymous has named human rights violators, dictators, and censors as its priority targets. Because of its de­cen­tral­ized structure, no moral line or ideology can be for­mu­lat­ed. For this reason, Anonymous has re­peat­ed­ly had to distance itself from various actions in recent years that were carried out in the name of the col­lec­tive but hardly met its internal approval.

The name Anonymous derives from the supposed anonymity under which users publish images, videos, and posts on the web. The idea of using the term as a shared identity emerged on image boards (Internet forums for the anonymous exchange of messages and files) such as 4chan. In 2004, an ad­min­is­tra­tor activated a “Forced_Anon” protocol that au­to­mat­i­cal­ly signed all posts as “Anonymous.” Shortly after, the initial idea of a single in­di­vid­ual behind this profile became a popular Internet meme.

Through 4chan’s /b/ board, users came together to perform mass pranks or attacks on other websites (also referred to as “raids”). These attacks were primarily aimed at sites and people who rep­re­sent­ed easy targets. There was no concrete ideology or mo­ti­va­tion behind the col­lec­tive’s action at that stage. Nev­er­the­less, the joint actions set the cor­ner­stone of what is known as Anonymous today. The group has been in­creas­ing­ly political as of 2008.

In videos or during public demon­stra­tions, Anonymous members always appear wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, based on the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” by Alan Moore, first published in 1982, which deals with the his­tor­i­cal legacy of Guy Fawkes (1570-1606), a Catholic officer of England. V, the main character, wears the mask modeled after the face of the his­tor­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion­ary in his fight against the ruling party. The drawings of the British comic artist David Lloyd later served as a model for the film adap­ta­tion of the comic in 2006, through which the Guy Fawkes mask and its symbolic meaning gained global pop­u­lar­i­ty.

The afore­men­tioned action against Sci­en­tol­ogy, also known as Project Chanology, marked the beginning of Anonymous’ ac­tiv­i­ties in 2008. Since then, the col­lec­tive has regularly launched new attacks and leaks that caused a stir globally due to their political and social im­pli­ca­tions. We have compiled some of the most prominent “op­er­a­tions” – as Anonymous likes to call its projects.

In 2010, Anonymous launched Operation Payback, a dis­trib­uted denial-of-service attack that re­tal­i­at­ed against copyright as­so­ci­a­tions such as the RIAA and IFPI, which tracked copyright in­fringe­ments on torrent websites. By the end of the year, the operation shifted focus to companies such as Visa and Mas­ter­card, which had severed their business re­la­tion­ships with WikiLeaks.

In 2011, Dutch pros­e­cu­tors and police became targets after two people involved in the operation were arrested.

In 2014, Anonymous launched its cyberwar campaign against the Islamic State (IS). Operation Ice ISIS has since pursued the goal of reducing the terrorist or­ga­ni­za­tion’s influence on social media. Thousands of sus­pi­cious accounts on Facebook and Twitter were sub­se­quent­ly taken over, leaked, or rendered unusable.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris (2015), for which IS claimed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, the col­lec­tive in­ten­si­fied its efforts as part of Operation Paris. To date, the success of both op­er­a­tions, some of which are con­sid­ered coun­ter­pro­duc­tive even within Anonymous, has been man­age­able.

On October 28, 2015, Anonymous declared that the or­ga­ni­za­tion would dox up to 1,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan and others af­fil­i­at­ed with the white su­prema­cist terrorist and hate group by releasing their names, claiming they didn’t deserve privacy. A week later, a list of 57 phone numbers and 23 email addresses was re­port­ed­ly published. Anonymous, however, denied releasing this in­for­ma­tion and claimed they were still going to, which they then did a few days later.

In 2020, Anonymous carried out cyber-attacks on the Nigerian gov­ern­ment in support of the #EndSARS movement in the country. LiteMods, one of Anonymous’ members, even tweeted the attacks. The EFCC, INEC, and other Nigerian gov­ern­ment websites were over­pow­ered with DDoS attacks.

Anonymous got involved in the war between Russia and Ukraine in late February 2022. Within a short time, it flooded hundreds of websites of Russian banks and state-owned companies such as Sberbank and Gazprom, media outlets such as Russia Today (RT), and Russian gov­ern­ment sites using DDoS attacks. Many of these sites were tem­porar­i­ly shut down.

In an attack on the Ministry of Defense, Anonymous was also able to leak a 1.3 gigabyte data set. On March 7, 2022, the col­lec­tive managed to hijack Russian state tele­vi­sion and some streaming providers to interrupt regular pro­gram­ming and instead show images from the war on Ukraine.

As an ordinary web user, you are not a likely target for Anonymous. But this po­lit­i­cal­ly engaged col­lec­tive is not the only danger lurking on the web. With the right tricks, you can arm yourself against cy­ber­crim­i­nals to keep your data safe long term:

• Protect logins: Whether it’s social media, cloud service, customer center, or online banking – always ensure you protect sensitive data using a secure password.
• Secure website: If you run a website, smooth operation is not the only important factor. You are also re­spon­si­ble for your users’ data. Our tips for better website security will help keep your web project safe.
• Secure server: Run a server that is ac­ces­si­ble online? Ensure that criminals don’t stand a chance by con­fig­ur­ing a secure server. Among other things, you have the option to set up fail2ban to prevent brute force attacks.
• Secure email traffic: Email is still one of the most important means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. You should use email en­cryp­tion to protect important messages. Moreover, there are web services that allow you to regularly check whether your email has been hacked.
• Secure cloud: Many services today run on the cloud where security plays a major role. Companies working with sensitive data should find out how to use their cloud services securely.