U.S. searches dozens of homes in connection with 'Anonymous' web attacks

[News_Editor]

U.S. searches dozens of homes in connection with 'Anonymous' web attacks

2011-01-28 08:13:53 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday executed dozens of search warrants at locations throughout the United States as part of an ongoing investigation into cyber attacks by a group calling themselves 'Anonymous.'

A statement from the national press office of the FBI said the agency executed more than 40 search warrants throughout the United States on Thursday, but provided few details. No arrests were immediately made.

The coordinated law enforcement action was in connection with the recent and ongoing 'distributed denial of service' (DDoS) attacks by a group calling themselves 'Anonymous.' It also comes on the same day when British police arrested five young men in connection with the attacks.

American and British police and law enforcement agencies in other nations such as the Netherlands, Germany, and France have been investigating the 'Anonymous' DDoS attacks since they began last year in support of whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks. Companies such as MasterCard and Visa were among the victims, but 'Anonymous' has recently also launched DDoS attacks for other causes such as Tunisia.

"The FBI also is reminding the public that facilitating or conducting a DDoS attack is illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as well as exposing participants to significant civil liability," the FBI added. "The FBI is working closely with its international law enforcement partners and others to mitigate these threats."

Earlier on Thursday, Scotland Yard said five males aged 15, 16, 19, 20 and 26 are being held after a series of coordinated arrests at residential addresses in the West Midlands, Northants, Herts, Surre, and London at around 7 a.m. local time. If found guilty they could face up to 10 years in prison under UK law.

A DDoS attack is a low level attack that uses readily accessible malware and requires minimal knowledge. In essence, it consists of exhausting the resources of a computer (e.g. Server) such that it becomes unavailable to legitimate users.

For example, if a web server is designed to service 100 simultaneous users and an attacker can get 200 computers to simultaneously and constantly request pages from the server, then the server becomes overloaded and legitimate users are locked out through overloading the server and/or congesting the connection to the server.

The attack is distributed in nature meaning it originates from many computers, often under remote malware control, each making a small number of requests. As a result it is difficult to distinguish the attack from legitimate internet traffic.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-01-28

[TAWP]

So they manage to grab some of the tag-alongs that isn't responsible for any of the bot-nets...well, atleast other tag-alongs might be discouraged to join in in the future...if it wasn't for the fact that they have only arrested some 0.0001% of those involved.

If they haven't been able to grab some of my friends running bot-nets for the past 8 years then I doubt they will now either...as they know how to do it securely.

[SerpentSea]

So they manage to grab some of the tag-alongs that isn't responsible for any of the bot-nets...well, atleast other tag-alongs might be discouraged to join in in the future...if it wasn't for the fact that they have only arrested some 0.0001% of those involved.

If they haven't been able to grab some of my friends running bot-nets for the past 8 years then I doubt they will now either...as they know how to do it securely.

Some poor chan/b kids got a visit by the party van. serious business, teh internets it is.