Anonymous declared war on ISIS following the Paris terror attacks, and yesterday claimed to have already shut down 5,500 of their social media accounts. ISIS have now fired back at Anonymous declaring themselves ‘owners of the virtual world’ and branding the hackers a bunch of idiots by posting the following message on Telegram – an encrypted messaging service similar to WhatsApp:
The #Anonymous hackers threatened in new video release that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots).
What they gonna hack?
The message also included details of how to avoid being hacked, mainly concerning using a VPN (virtual private network) to make yourself anonymous on the internet. They’ve also urged any supporters to stay away from Twitter and not talk to anyone online that they don’t already know.
Following this, today ISIS have encouraged their followers to change their profile pictures on the Telegram to that of a French flag with a footprint on it, although I’m not sure what this will achieve as it will only make them targets to be hacked by Anonymous. Sure, it’s an encrypted service but Anonymous probably have a way around that.
Indeed, Anonymous are now claiming that they’ve disabled as many as 10,000 ISIS accounts as of this morning, although it’s unclear whether any of those belong to Telegram users. ISIS have already fired back though, as an Anonymous Twitter account also appeared to have been hacked after posting the following tweet:
Featured Image VIA
https://twitter.com/opparisofficial/status/666913180711424001?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
A spokesperson from the Quilliam Foundation — a research institute which studies Islamic extremism — offered the following analysis of the situation:
I don’t know if it is literally declaring virtual war on Anonymous, but it is promising a response – they are definitely trying to taunt Anonymous with this.
Writing a post is easy, it’s doing a strong response that will be the thing to watch for.
It seems like things between the two groups are heating up, but with no real way to confirm who is winning this ‘war ‘ (all the Anonymous claims come from the group itself and are unconfirmed), it seems like it could be raging for some time, without anyone on the outside really knowing what’s going on. Hopefully Task Force Black can make a more tangible impact in the war on ISIS in the mean time.
