Panda risks labelling LulzSec stupid

Panda Security has attacked LulzSec's hacking activities, saying the group was a proponent of "stupidism" rather than "hacktivism."

In past cases, when so called hacktivist groups receive criticism, they have responded by fighting fire with fire.

If you took the most irresponsible and brainless members of Anonymous and put them all together, they would be considered the most refined gentlemen compared to LulzSec.

When security firm HBGary claimed it had gained the identities of a number of key members of Anonymous, the hacktivist group struck back by stealing tens of thousands of emails and posting them online.

In its cyber crime report for the second quarter of 2011, Panda chose to criticise LulzSec and the way it operates.

"If you took the most irresponsible and brainless members of Anonymous and put them all together, they would be considered the most refined gentlemen compared to LulzSec," Panda said.

Panda said LulzSec suffered from a "lack of coherence," claiming the hack of Sega was a case in point. In that particular episode, LulzSec was linked to the attack, but subsequently came out to say it was not responsible and offered to help find the perpetrators.

"It seems pretty clear that Lulzsec thinks it is perfectly OK to commit a crime as long as they are the perpetrators, otherwise it is clearly wrong and the competitor' must be destroyed," Panda said.

LulzSec has now disbanded, but Panda had some harsh words for fellow hacktivist group Anonymous too.

"It seems that the only way the Anonymous group has to protest is by committing illegal acts. However, if the members of the group were smart enough, they would realize that their constant breaking of the law undermines the legitimacy of their protests," the company added.

"Moreover, they claim that their activities are 'peaceful protests', despite their actions are purposefully enacted to cause economic loss and completely illegal. They say they represent everyone's best interest' but are not brave enough to appear publicly, hiding instead behind their pseudonyms."

Last month, Anonymous responded to arrests in Spain of its alleged members by hitting the website of the national police force with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.