The FBI has issued over 40 search warrants as part of an investigation into Anonymous distributed denial of service attacks.
The US law enforcement body made the announcement yesterday after UK police arrested five males as part of an investigation into Anonymous.
Anonymous made headlines last year after launching a number of DDoS attacks against companies that had stopped serving WikiLeaks.
Security professionals believe those being investigated were using the LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) tool to carry out DDoS attacks.
"These distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) are facilitated by software tools designed to damage a computer network's ability to function by flooding it with useless commands and information, thus denying service to legitimate users," an FBI statement read.
"A group calling itself Anonymous' has claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they conducted them in protest of the companies' and organisations' actions."
The FBI reminded people that facilitating or conducting a DDoS attack is illegal and, as in the UK, anyone found guilty of participating in such attacks could get up to 10 years in prison.
"Suggesting that creating a multi-purpose tool is the reason they are executing these warrants strikes a chill in me," said Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos Canada, in a blog post.
"That would be like going after Stanley Tools for making the box cutters that the 9-11 hijackers used. I hope it is an honest mistake."
Yesterday, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure, told IT PRO he believed those arrested in the UK had used the LOIC tool in pro- WikiLeaks DDoS strikes.
He said if an internet service provider released IP logs, it would be simple to locate LOIC users.
-
M&S suspends online sales as 'cyber incident' continuesNews Marks & Spencer (M&S) has informed customers that all online and app sales have been suspended as the high street retailer battles a ‘cyber incident’.
-
Manners cost nothing, unless you’re using ChatGPTOpinion Polite users are costing OpenAI millions of dollars each year – but Ps and Qs are a small dent in what ChatGPT could cost the planet
-
UK police fails ethical tests with "unlawful" facial recognition deploymentsNews A University of Cambridge team audited UK police use of the tech and found frequent ethical and legal shortcomings
-
Anonymous hijacks Russian broadcasts with footage of Ukraine warNews The hacking group said it managed to manipulate the broadcasts of three major Russian state-backed media organisations
-
Hackers love the UK, but not for the reason you thinkNews Ex-Met cyber specialist explains why the UK is such a popular destination for cyber criminals
-
UK cops to lose access to Europol's cyber crime resources after BrexitNews Cyber cops will be on their own once Britain leaves the EU
-
Police pursue cloud first IT strategyNews The National Police Technology Council's guidelines attempt to standardise IT deployment
-
NGO director guilty of denying police his device passwordsNews Muhammad Rabbani refused to divulge iPhone and MacBook passwords at Heathrow airport
-
20% of Manchester police rely on Windows XPNews London's Metropolitan Police refused to disclose any up-to-date figures
-
Should police have powers to sack officers lacking IT skills?
News Reform produces a 10-point plan to address policing's digital skills gap
