On Tuesday, the hacking group known as Anonymous, shut down hundreds of social media accounts that were seen sympathizing in any way to the Islamic State.
The instance of such a hack was nothing new or shocking, such occasions have been prevalent for a long time. Just last month, the group of “hack – tivists” embarked on a cyber war against the digital jihadists. This was done in response to the heinous terrorist attacks on the French sardonic news paper Charlie Hebdo in the previous month. They launched a campaign, known as the hacking campaign, which is called the “Operation ISIS” or #OpISIS.
Hackers have taken responsibility for exposing or damaging nearly eight hundred Twitter accounts, twelve Face book pages and profiles and over fifty five email addresses that showed any links with the supporters of the Islamic State. The hackers are proving to be relentless and determined to protest against the Islamic State.
The cyber terrorists released a You Tube video and made a skin chilling statement: ‘We will chase you, break down your web sites, accounts, email addresses and expose you.’ They went on to instill fear in the masses by further adding: ‘From this moment on wards, there will be no secure place for you on the internet — you will be treated like a virus, and we are the treatment. We have full ownership of the Internet from now on.’
The hack could prove seriously harmful to the Islamist activists’ online propaganda and support efforts. The terrorist group has relied heavily on the social media to sign up new fighters, to relay threats and to post recordings of their executions of enemies.
Another gang of Islamic State Loyalists, calling themselves the ‘Cyber Caliphate’, has carried out a number of high profile hacks on Twitter accounts in these recent weeks, all which include violation of the United States Central Command, the famous News week magazine and the Twitter account profile pages of a renowned spouse of a military personnel.
Anonymous‘ hacking apparently annoyed at least one Islamic State supporter who threatened to take the life of the members of the cyber group if the hack were to continue. The Anonymous hacking group has usually been on the negative scale of media interest and has been attributed with planned cyber attacks on the government and on certain businesses. But the group is now being commended for its efforts to battle the computer – generated jihadists. British Newspaper, The Sun News, featured news of the hack on its front page and gave it the headline, “The Digilantes.”
The identity of the Anonymous hackers has frequently been under question even though the Anonymous hackers identify themselves as a multiethnic group which consists of Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.
Even though the nature of such attacks is completely unpredictable, we know that they will prevail for some time till the hackers decide on the faith of the Islamic State.
