The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Anti-Sec spoof threatens s'kiddie mayhem

Interweb will be punked rather than pwned

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

Pranksters have latched onto Anti-Sec's quixotic crusade against full disclosure of security vulnerabilities by impersonating the group in a threat to unleash an OpenSSH exploit.

The impersonators threatened to release details of an unpatched vulnerability in OpenSSH, followed by worm code hours later. A post on a full disclosure mailing list expressed the supposed hope that the code would allow s'kiddies to attack systems and make security defenders look like chumps.

Indeed the security world at large would quake at (fake) Anti-Sec's power, the pranksters boasted in the style of a comic strip supervillian.

Soon, the very foundations of Information Technology and Information Security will be unearthed as millions upon million of systems running ANY version of OpenSSH are compromised by wave after wave of script-kiddie and malicious hacker.

Anti-Sec’s manifesto calls for "eliminating the security industry in its present form". The group previously said it was against sites that publish full disclosure material on security vulnerabilities.

Responding to questions from El Reg, the impersonators first claimed their latest actions might appear to go directly against aims stated only last week. Minutes later they admitted the whole exercise was a hoax.

Lulz it was a pretty good joke eh? Anti-Sec is awesome because we can make jokes under its name. whoever Anti-Sec is are awesome.

Whether Anti-Sec reciprocates these feelings remains unknown but we'd suggest the odds are against it. The prank illustrates the potential pitfalls of an anonymous internet campaign on the web. ®

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Latest Comments

Don't give weev anymore attention, please.

The New York Times article was his proverbial jumping of the shark. Please don't feed the trolls.

0
0
Anonymous Coward

Hackers on steroids? Oh shi-

I doubt that is /b/, but more likely some other bunch of wannabes. Doesn't smell right. For instance, /b/ would have dropped a meme into their posts there, something like "I think Anti-Sec is a pretty cool guy, eh gets trolled by skiddies and doesn't afraid of anything". I'd suspect it's maybe Something Awful or perhaps lulznet...

0
0

@Jez; The web is the internet?

Damn, the eighties and early nineties with Archie and Veronica, spam-free email and newsgroups, ftp &c seemed so vivid ... and I don't even take drugs.

PS - next time just write ME TOO!! to identify yourself, and we can fill in the rest.

0
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
 breaking news
NSA PRISM snoop-gate: Won't someone think of the children, wails Apple
10,000 things probed, mostly about missing kids, Alzheimer patients, we're told
Flash flaw potentially makes every webcam or laptop a PEEPHOLE
But it's a Google problem - Chrome only, insists Adobe
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
 breaking news
Yahoo! joins! rivals! in! PRISM! data! request! admission!
Keep calm and carry on using American tech firms, folks
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights
Speech-to-text drives motorists to distraction
Will talking to you mean I crash into that car up ahead, Siri?
DHS warns of vulns in hospital medical equipment
Has your doctor's anasthesia machine been hacked?
 breaking news
'BadNews is malware' says outfit that found it
Google says code harmless but Lookout says code base is evolving