Following the arrest of 25 suspected Anonymous hackers this week, the infamous hacking collective has reportedly claimed it was infiltrated.
On Tuesday, Interpol confirmed that an international operation against suspected hackers believed to be connected to Anonymous in Latin America and Europe had resulted in 25 arrests. The international police organisation did not, however, specify how it had come to identify the suspects.
“Operation Unmask was launched in mid-February, following a series of coordinated cyber attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain against the Colombian Ministry of Defence and presidential Web sites, as well as Chile's Endesa electricity company and its National Library, among others,” said Interpol.
The international operation was carried out by national law enforcement officers in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain. According to the Interpol statement, over 250 items of IT equipment and mobile phones were seized during searches of 40 premises in 15 different cities.
Anonymous does not have a concrete membership structure, and hackers, activists and supporters freely claim allegiance to its principles, so it will remain to be seen whether the latest arrests have any real impact on the collective.
Spies among us
According to a report by the Associated Press, self-proclaimed members of Anonymous said in conversations in an online chat room where Spanish-speaking activists often meet, that nearly all of those arrested had been active on Web sites used by the group. As a result, this raised concerns among other members of possible infiltration.
A post on the Spanish and Latin American blog for Anonymous, Anonymous Iberoamerica, said the arrests were not a result of "intelligence work or informatics strategy", but rather "the use of spies and informants within the movement".
Anonymous members are known to keep their identities hidden behind pseudonyms, even among each other, making the group susceptible to infiltration. The group is infamous for defacing high-profile Web sites, carrying out denial-of-service attacks and publishing sensitive private data collected from hacks on major sites.
Soon after Tuesday's arrests, Anonymous carried out an attack on the Interpol Web site in retaliation. The site was down for about half an hour before being restored.
In the statement issued following the arrests, acting Interpol executive director of police services, Bernd Rossbach, said: “This operation shows that crime in the virtual world does have real consequences for those involved, and that the Internet cannot be seen as a safe haven for criminal activity, no matter where it originates or where it is targeted.”
According to Interpol, there are regional working parties in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East to facilitate the development of strategies to counter IT crime.
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