The Internet hacker group Anonymous, acting in protest of the police response to Occupy Boston, claimed credit for a recent cyber-attack on the Boston Police Department’s website.
The site, BPDNews.com, was taken over on Feb. 3 and replaced with a user-designed interface the attackers titled “Antisec,” according to a video police officials recently released.
For about a week, the site had nothing but a red warning set against a black background in which the group reminded the BPD that Antisec released hundreds of passwords a few months ago for “brutality” at Occupy Boston.
“[The police] clearly ignored our warnings because not only did they raid the camp again and kick protesters off of public parks, but they also sent undercover TSA agents to assault and attempt to steal from some organizers,” the statement on the website said. “So you get your kicks beating protesters?”
Anonymous said it threatened more attacks in the future.
“There is plenty more mayhem to deliver for this,” the statement said.
The attack came on the same day Anonymous leaked confidential FBI phone calls.
In response to the attack, the BPD released a video that featured short interviews with officers dismayed by the disappearance of “Boston’s primary public service website.”
“I’ll tell you what I miss the most – the great community stories [and] the great community pictures,” said one officer in the video. “Why would anyone want to destroy a community website that does so much?”
The video announced the computer expert tasked with putting the site back online was confident the issue had been resolved.
The site was restored Thursday, six days after the attack. BPD officials declined to comment to The Daily Free Press.
Anonymous had previously seized and released the emails and passwords of city officers from the Patrolmen’s Association website in October. The group has also taken responsibility in the past for attacks against the credit card industry and Bank of America.
The group is a “leaderless coalition of individuals just like yourself dedicated to restoring freedom and fighting corruption and tyranny in all its forms,” according to a press release on an Anonymous-affiliated website, AnonNews.org.
In a message to NATO on the same website, the group said it merely wishes to return power to the people.
“Our message is simple: Do not lie to the people and you won’t have to worry about your lies being exposed,” the wensite states. “Do not make corrupt deals and you won’t have to worry about your corruption being laid bare. Do not break the rules and you won’t have to worry about getting in trouble for it.”
Professor Leonid Reyzin from the computer science department at Boston University said software engineering is a very difficult task and almost all software has bugs in it.
“Because of this, it is very difficult to protect any internet-connected computer against a targeted attack by a sophisticated adversary,” Reyzin said.
He said a report on Operation Shady RAT showed that “even companies with access to the best resources and expertise are unable to secure their data using today’s technology.”
Reyzin said there are just as many difficulties tracking down people responsible for an attack as there are for preventing them.
He said while efforts to track attackers succeed on a few occasions, they fail most of the time.
Those firms that do manage to find the perpetrators of a targeted breach still risk damage to their public image, leaks of confidential information and loss of critical data or operational capabilities, Reyzin said.
Richard Stallman, developer of the operating system GNU and prominent member of the Free Software movement, said he has a different take.
Stallman said in an email that the proper question was not about the security of the BPD website.
“The important question is, what does democracy have to worry about?” Stallman said. “The Boston Police Department, for one thing.”
But Stallman said it is unlikely that Anonymous can change anything by itself. Perhaps in combination with other movements such as Occupy, Anonymous could help.
Despite its flaws, there remain good reasons to support Anonymous, he said.
“Any attempt to weaken the grip of the one percent is a long shot,” he said. “We must therefore honor those who try these long shots.”
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