More alleged members of hacker collective Anonymous were arrested over the weekend, this time by Turkish authorities in connection with DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks against some of the country’s government websites in protests against planned Internet censorship.
32 people, including 8 minors, and a number of computers thought to have been involved in the attacks were detained in several Turkish cities, including Ankara and Istanbul. The investigation and arrests were carried out by the Ankara Police Department’s Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Branch.
The arrests in Turkey came just a few days after 3 alleged Anonymous hackers were arrested in Spain late last week in connection with other attacks, including last month’s hacking attacks on various Sony servers.
As promised, Anonymous members retaliated against Spain’s National Police in response to the arrests.
“Operation Policia (#OpPolicia) is the name for the successful DDoS attack that paralyzed the Official National Police website (Página Oficial del Cuerpo Nacional de Policíawww.policia.es) for hours on Saturday, making it inaccessible to visitors,” the group posted on their AnonOps blog. “The DDoS attack is a protest tactic often deployed by Anonymous.”
But, while the hackers have been relying heavily on their Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) DDoS attacks to get the message across to corporations and government agencies that they’re not pleased with, it may also be the very thing that is leading to their demise.
"LOIC...doesn't do a very good job of covering your tracks--making it potentially easy for computer crime authorities to track those behind the attacks," security firm Sophos' Graham Cluley wrote regarding Anonymous operative’s chosen weapon.
“My guess is that those who took part in the attacks are not in such a celebratory mood now that the Turkish authorities appear to have identified some of them,” Cluley continued.
That likely won’t deter remaining Anonymous members from staging retaliatory attacks against the Turkish government, however. After all, these are far from the first arrests that have taken place within the group, and they likely won’t be the last.
