The hacking collective Anonymous was in the news last month for “Operation Free Korea,” in which it hacked North Korea’s Flicker and Twitter account as well as launched an attack on a number of North Korean websites. Their next target isn’t some heavily sanctioned, allegedly rogue nuclear state. It’s actually the United States of America, and Anonymous is threatening to wipe it “off the cyber map.”
They’re calling these attacks OpUSA or OperationUSA, phase 1 of which starts today on the 7th of May. Only last month Anonymous touted its plans for OpIsrael in which it threatened to wipe Israel off the cyber map as well, but those planned attacks reportedly didn’t do much damage. Anonymous threatens DNS attacks, doxes (leaking email addresses etc), redirects, defaces, DDoS attacks, admin take overs and database leaks of its targets.
In a statement released last month, Anonymous said: “America you have committed multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and recently you have committed war crimes in your own country.” The collective also said that “We will now wipe you off the cybermap. Do not take this as a warning.” Anonymous threatens that it will target various government agencies such as NSA, NATO and FBI. Banking institutions are also on their list, including major ones such as Chase, Citi, Capital One, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.For the people, Anonymous suggests that they should move from big banks to a local union.
The Department of Homeland Security has already issued a confidential warning, though it believes that damage from these attacks will be quite limited. That said, a message from a hacked AP account caused a stock market drop, which proves that there’s no need to breach heavily fortified digital domains to cause “some” damage.