NEWS: Pro-Islamic hacker groups joining forces globally
Pro-Islamic hacker groups joining forces globally. There is mounting evidence that individual
hacker groups are coalescing and becoming interconnected through a common pro-Islamic agenda. Several aggregate groups have pooled expertise and carried out digital attacks
under a common anti-US, anti-Israel, anti-India banner. These hacker alliances produce
elaborate propaganda promoting their ideology as part of their destructive payload, which combines several issues such as the Middle East conflict, the War on Terrorism and the Kashmir standoff.
According to the correlation mapped using the mi2g SIPS database, the three main pro-Islamic and anti-US, Israel and India aggregate hacker groups are: USG (Unix Security Guards), an anti-Israel alliance responsible for 161 overt digital attacks to date; WFD (World's Fantabulous Defacers), a Pakistani alliance of 12 member groups that has overtly attacked 445 sites since November 2000; and AIC (Anti-India Crew), a Pakistani alliance established in July 2001, responsible for 422 attacks to date, 77 of them on Indian (.in) sites. Both USG and AIC have become very active, carrying out atotal of 111 overt digital attacks between them in May at the height of tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
Sites attacked include those of universities and educational institutions, businesses, hotels and retailers. The most important lesson learned from these events is the coming together of
pro-Islamic groups to simultaneously participate in joint digital attacks on Western and Indian
targets. Hacktivism has mirrored international political conflict since the late '90s with two key events being the NATO-Serbia and China-Taiwan conflicts in 1999. In 2002, this has been evident during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both in the sudden explosion of digital
attacks on Israeli sites and the heavy political content of the multimedia messages placed on thedefaced sites.
