Hacking has grown enormously. What just began as internet pranks on personal computers has now grown into a nexus of exercises like holding expansive corporations to deliver over their critical data or closing down the whole government and non-government associations' administrations for long stretches. Hacking is no more a skilled coder's pastime, for it has turned into a profession. 
 Here are the top five notorious <keyword id="3952627" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hacking-groups">hacking groups</keyword>

World’s most notorious
hacking groups

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56c59d39dd08953b298b465e-2013-1510/rtxzn2j.jpg" alt="Mustafa Al-Bassam" data-mce-source="REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth" data-mce-caption="Mustafa al-Bassam arrives at Southwark Crown Court in central London May 15, 2013." />REUTERS/Stefan WermuthMustafa Al-Bassam arrives at Southwark Crown Court in central London May 15, 2013.</div></div></div>Mustafa Al-Bassam, the Iraqi-born hacker who was sentenced to 20 months in prison for computer misuse, has been given a job at payment processing firm Secure Trading, which is based in London's Canary Wharf.The reformed hacker - who <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/05/lulzsec-hack-fbi-infragard-atlanta_n_871545.html" target="_blank">reportedly hacked fox.com, FBI affiliate Infragard, and Sony</a> - will act as a security advisor on Secure Trading's technology and services, including a blockchain research project called "Trustery."Al-Bassam, once part of the LulzSec group and nicknamed "tFlow," told Business Insider that he gets job offers "every now and again" from companies that want to carry out "penetration testing" on their systems but this offer was the most flexible one to date.Al-Bassam currently is studying for a computer science degree at Kings College London so he will only work part time at Secure Trading. His undergraduate course ends this year and he said there's a possibility he will join Secure Trading full-time when he graduates.The financial services industry has been behind the curve when it comes to security practices, Al-Bassam said.Commenting on his teenage hacking exploits, Al-Bassam said: "I don't think I'm being hired purely because I was involved in that kind of thing." He added: "I see it as an interesting experience. It wasn't negative or positive."At Secure Trading, Al-Bassam will work alongside the senior management team including chairman and founder Kobus Paulsen, CTO Ian Hughes, and COO Gerald Kitchen.The Trustery project that Al-Bassam will work on has been established in a bid to help commercialise blockchain technologies and improve the visibility and security of online payments. Blockchain is the underlying technology for digital currency bitcoin. Paulsen said in a statement: "There are very few experts in blockchain technology, and we're very lucky to have Mustafa on board. By developing this project we hope to use his skills and create technology to help make the world of ecommerce safer for thousands of customers." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bike-generator-2016-2">This bicycle generator could bring electricity to millions of people living without it</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="picnE5MTE65k5jXgyWMbz1auqn1htM9e" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'picnE5MTE65k5jXgyWMbz1auqn1htM9e',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

LulzSec hacker Mustafa Al-Bassam has joined a security company to work on blockchain

<table class="image-container float_right click-to-enlarge" width="200"><tr><td><div class="image"><a title_source="LulzSec" title_caption="The LulzSec logo." class="zoomin" href="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4e0468eb49e2ae9477040000-960/lulz.jpg"><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4e0468eb49e2ae9477040000-400-300/lulz.jpg" border="0" alt="LulzSec" /></a></div>LulzSecThe LulzSec logo.</td></tr></table>An unnamed 24-year-old in New South Wales, Australia, was arrested for defacing a government website, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22275445">the BBC</a> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22275445">reports</a>.
This individual is the "self-proclaimed leader" of hacking group LulzSec, a splinter group of <keyword id="169875" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="anonymous">Anonymous</keyword>, the BBC says.
The group has waged several high profile attacks against major organizations like Sony and the CIA since forming in 2011.
The alleged hacker is charged with two counts of "unauthorized modification of data to cause impairment" and one count of "unauthorized access to restricted data," which has him looking at up to 12 years in prison.
Read the <a href="http://www.afp.gov.au/media-centre/news/afp/2013/april/afp-arrests-first-lulzsec-hacker.aspx">Australian police statement here</a>.

The Alleged Leader Of Hacking Group 'LulzSec' Was Just Arrested In Australia

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51f03b14eab8eac23b000000-500-375/cash-hand-bribe-kickback.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="cash hand bribe kickback" width="480" /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/quazie/">Flickr, CC / quaziefoto</a></div></div>While the tech industry has a reputation for attracting shy but well-meaning nerds, the vast amounts of money involved mean that it also brings in people with shadier intentions.
There are the <keyword id="11094" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hackers">hackers</keyword>, who break into networks and systems for fun or profit.
There are the leakers, who use their access to the knowledge and information at their finger tips to start public discussions about things that were previously corporate or government secrets.
And then there are the frauds, the people who are selling something that doesn't exist.

The 13 Most Notorious Alleged Criminals In Tech History

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6409883" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="wikileaks">WikiLeaks</keyword> founder <keyword id="281337" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Julian-Assange">Julian Assange</keyword> is facing a new <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/download">grand jury indictment</a> charging him with conspiring with "Anonymous" and "LulzSec"-affiliated hackers to access classified US government documents.</li><li>The <keyword id="67869" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Department-of-Justice">Department of Justice</keyword> said in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-superseding-indictment">press release</a> Wednesday that a Virginia grand jury returned a second superseding indictment that doesn't add new charges but does "broaden the scope of the conspiracy" that Assange has been charged with orchestrating.</li><li>The DOJ <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-indicted-doj-charges-2018-11">previously charged</a> Assange with 18 criminal counts, including violating the Espionage Act.</li><li>Assange currently remains in custody in the United Kingdom while the US continues to seek his extradition.</li></ul>WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/download">new federal indictment</a> in the US that claims he conspired with hackers associated with groups including "Anonymous" and "LulzSec." A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, returned the second superseding indictment against Assange on Wednesday. It doesn't add new charges but the Department of Justice in a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-superseding-indictment">press release</a> explained their case does "broaden the scope of the conspiracy" Assange was previously charged with orchestrating."Assange and others at WikiLeaks recruited and agreed with hackers to commit computer intrusions to benefit WikiLeaks," the press release said.In the release, the DOJ said that in 2012 "Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack." It also said WikiLeaks obtained and published information retrieved as part of a hack into an "American intelligence consulting company by an 'Anonymous' and LulzSec-affiliated hacker."Federal prosecutors <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-indicted-doj-charges-2018-11">previously indicted</a> Assange for obtaining and disseminating sensitive national security information in 2010. In April and then with a superseding indictment in May 2019 the US government charged Assange with 18 total criminal counts, including violating the Espionage Act.The 2019 indictment also alleged that Assange helped former US army analyst <keyword id="1854864" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Chelsea-Manning">Chelsea Manning</keyword> hack a password on a classified Pentagon computer.In its release Wednesday, the DOJ called the leaks "one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States."Assange currently remains in custody in the United Kingdom as the US seeks his extradition to Virginia, where he would eventually be put on trial.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faces broadened charges of conspiring with 'Anonymous' hackers in new federal grand jury indictment

Sony Pictures is currently recovering from a massive hack, which forced the company to shut down its computer system last Monday. Now everyone, from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to Sony to the international media, is trying to figure out who is behind the attack.
Following suggestions that North Korea was involved in the hack as part of retaliation for an upcoming movie about two American journalists who attempt to kill Kim Jong-un, <a href="http://recode.net/2014/12/03/sony-to-officially-name-north-korea-as-source-of-hack-attack/">Re/code reported Wednesday night</a> that Sony was ready to confirm that allegation. 
News of the Sony Pictures hack first emerged on Reddit <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/hacking/comments/2n9zhv/i_used_to_work_for_sony_pictures_my_friend_still/">when a former employee shared a photo</a> taken by a current Sony worker. They claimed that the image was showing up on computer screens at Sony Pictures offices around the world. It shows a scary skull illustration, along with a threatening message from hacking group "#GOP." GOP stands for Guardians of Peace. 
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54806303dd0895360f8b46e6-979-734/sony-pictures-hack-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Sony Pictures hack"><a href="http://imgur.com/qXNgFVz">Imgur</a></img></div></div></div> 
Hackers found documents on Sony Pictures' servers that contained passwords to a range of other services. It looks like they used those documents to gain access to Twitter accounts controlled by Sony.
Here's one of the tweets posted by the hackers, showing a new illustration:
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5478902fdd08957b7a8b45f4-579-377/hacked-by-gop-sony-pictures-starship-troopers.0.png" border="0" alt="Sony Pictures Twitter hack"><a href="http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/11/sony-pictures-hackers-release-list-of-stolen-corporate-files/">Ars Technica</a></img></div></div></div>
That image is significant because it gives us a clue about the motives of Guardians of Peace. It accuses Sony Pictures of being "criminals," with Sony's logo Photoshopped onto a gravestone, and a photo of Sony Entertainment Inc. CEO Michael Lynton has been modified to make him look like Dracula. Guardians of Peace seem to be saying that Sony is killing the entertainment industry, and that its corporate practises are "criminal."
The images posted by Guardians of Peace suggest a similar motivation to the anti-capitalist ethos of groups like Anonymous and LulzSec. LulzSec <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-31-lulzsec-were-hacking-sony-right-now">famously hacked into Sony Pictures</a> in 2011, a revenge attack for Sony's legal action against a man who hacked into and modified the PlayStation 3 game console.
<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/54806303dd0895360f8b46e7-640-512/murdoch-hack-4e24c88-intro.jpg" border="0" alt="Rupert Murdoch hack" style="color: #000000;">The SunA fake news report claiming that media mogul Rupert Murdoch had died was the result of a hack.</img></div></div></div>Another similarity between Guardians of Peace and LulzSec is that they both target the CEOs of the companies they hack. In 2011 <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jul/18/sun-website-hacked-lulzsec">the group hacked into the website of the Sun newspaper</a>, publishing a fake news report claiming that Rupert Murdoch, CEO of the company that owns the Sun, had died.
It's not just Photoshopped images that have been posted by the Guardians of Peace hackers, though. They have also talked via email to a small number of journalists. <a href="http://www.csoonline.com/article/2853893/disaster-recovery/fbi-memo-warns-of-malware-possibly-linked-to-hack-at-sony-pictures.html">Salted Hash spoke to someone who claims to represent Guardians of Peace</a>, and they made a bizarre claim that alluded to "The Interview," the Sony movie that has angered North Korea:
We are an international organisation including famous figures in the politics and society from several nations such as United States, United Kingdom and France. We are not under direction of any state.
Our aim is not at the film The Interview as Sony Pictures suggests. But it is widely reported as if our activity is related to The Interview. This shows how dangerous film The Interview is. The Interview is very dangerous enough to cause a massive hack attack. Sony Pictures produced the film harming the regional peace and security and violating human rights for money.
The news with The Interview fully acquaints us with the crimes of Sony Pictures. Like this, their activity is contrary to our philosophy. We struggle to fight against such greed of Sony Pictures.
<a href="http://www.theverge.com/2014/11/25/7281097/sony-pictures-hackers-say-they-want-equality-worked-with-staff-to-break-in">Speaking to The Verge, someone claiming to represent Guardians of Peace shed some light</a> on how the group gained access to Sony's computer network: "Sony doesn't lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in. Im sorry I can't say more, safety for our team is important"
There are two theories emerging about the Sony Pictures hack. The first is that Guardians of Peace was given access to Sony's servers by a disgruntled employee. The group's public statements seem to lead to this explanation.
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/2o6s4c/sony_pictures_sees_little_evidence_that_north/?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=twitter">A comment posted on Reddit by a former Sony Pictures employee</a> who claims to have friends within the company says that it "100% makes sense" that an unhappy employee let hackers into Guardians of Peace. He also claims that "in the last year they have cleaned house, and not in a way most employees are happy about...everyone has been on edge there, morale is terrible, and good people were getting fired left and right."
The other theory is that Guardians of Peace is actually a group of hackers working for North Korea's Unit 121, the collection of skilled hackers who regularly hack into networks in South Korea and the US. There's no proven link here, but <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/experts-the-sony-hack-looks-a-lot-like-previous-attacks-on-south-korea-2014-12">security researchers have examined malware</a> that could have been used by Guardians of Peace, and there are similarities with North Korean hacking tactics.

Here's Everything We Know About The Mysterious Hack Of Sony Pictures

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/575b0d6edd0895d8018b477f-1178/kim jong un computer.jpg" alt="kim jong un computer" data-mce-source="Reuters" />ReutersNot the hacker you're looking for.</div></div></div>It's been nearly two years since a massive cyberattack hit Sony Entertainment, resulting in the leaks of thousands of private emails, social security numbers, unreleased films, and a complete data wipe of half of the company's network.And in the months and years that followed, attribution of the attack has zeroed in on North Korea - thought to be angered over the release of the film "The Interview" - but as one well-respected hacker told Tech Insider in a recent interview, that claim should be taken with a grain of salt as long as solid evidence <a href="https://www.riskbasedsecurity.com/2014/12/a-breakdown-and-analysis-of-the-december-2014-sony-hack/">continues to be withheld.</a>"The problem with that one is that the Sony network was documented Swiss cheese," said Cris Thomas (known as Space Rogue in hacker circles), a strategist at Tenable Network Security. "People have been in and out of the Sony network for the last decade. There's a list of who hacked Sony when."Indeed, the <a href="http://attrition.org/security/rant/sony_aka_sownage.html">website Attrition.org</a> has a running tally of at least 24 hacks into Sony properties since 2011.There's even a term hackers use to describe getting hacked (or owned) as much as Sony: <a href="http://www.zeropaid.com/news/94219/theres-a-reason-why-they-called-it-sownage/">Sownage</a>."So by the time North Korea got around to it - if it was North Korea - it was a known wide open network," Thomas said.Sony declined to comment.On its hacking list, Attrition wrote, "Sony has demonstrated they have not implemented what any rational administrator or security professional would consider 'the absolute basics.'"At least that was true in the period before the 2014 attack. <a href="http://fortune.com/sony-hack-final-part/">As we learned in the ensuing fallout</a>, Sony kept email records on its servers for many years, did not encrypt data, and it even kept thousands of passwords in a folder <a href="http://gizmodo.com/sony-kept-thousands-of-passwords-in-a-document-marked-1666772286">literally named "password."</a>Prior to the alleged North Korean hack, Sony's Playstation Network was breached by Anonymous, a hacker named "b4d_vipera" breached one of its music sites through a simple SQL injection, LulzSec used the same technique on its Japanese sites, and the group Lizard Squad conducted a large-scaled denial-of-service attack on Sony's gaming networks.And that's just a partial list.About a year before the 2014 breach, Sony was warned of unidentified hackers that had breached its network and mined its databases regularly, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-16/sony-said-to-learn-last-year-about-large-network-security-breach">according</a> to Bloomberg. Investigators found at least three hacking groups rooting around its systems, with a Russian group causing the "most damage" over a period of two years.Much of the evidence pointing toward North Korea has come via statements from government officials or the FBI, but neither have offered hard evidence. And that has led security professionals to still doubt the country's role in the attacks, with Thomas among them."It brings me back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President Kennedy famously gave his press briefing where he actually showed U-2 spy plane photos in his press briefing," Thomas said. "And this gave away great secrets of the United States, but it also proved to the world that there were, in fact, missiles in Cuba."But nothing like that occurred after the 2014 Sony hack. It was as one Fordham law professor summed it up to <a href="http://fortune.com/sony-hack-final-part/">Fortune</a>, "trust us, but we're not going to let you verify."And it's interesting to note how strange it is for the president to call something like the Sony hack an "<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-government-officially-blames-north-korea-for-sony-hack/">a serious national security matter</a>" and have officials exhibit "high confidence" it was North Korea but offer no reasoning as to why. Now contrast that with the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R42848.pdf">numerous reports</a>, photos, videos, and other data offered as evidence the Syrian government used chemical weapons in 2013.Thomas will likely remain skeptical until the US shares intelligence data that really explains the rationale behind attributing the attack to North Korea. What would avoid a "he said, she said" debate is evidence of IP addresses and packet captures, among other data."It's a dogpile," Stuart McClure, CEO of cybersecurity firm Cylance, told Fortune. "'Well, that one is North Korea, and this one looks like it, so it must be North Korea.' There's no objective evidence." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/redteam-hackers-power-grid-company-2016-4">Hackers showed us how to break into the grid - and it was shockingly easy</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="EwbnQxMzE6OEmcB6C0dEUlLfGdPuwVKn" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'EwbnQxMzE6OEmcB6C0dEUlLfGdPuwVKn',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

A hacker explains why you shouldn't believe North Korea was behind the massive Sony hack

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/548af7c2dd08957f158b4604-1200-924/sony-pictures-ceo-michael-lynton-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton">GettySony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton.</img>Following the Sony hacking scandal, in which&#xa0;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/amy-pascal-interview-on-sony-hack-2014-12">thousands of documents from the company's movie studio were exposed</a>, an IT worker employed by a firm that has access to Sony's computer network has described the company's security as a "mess."
"The security team has no f---ing clue," the&#xa0;employee told Business Insider, speaking about the team's unpreparedness for a cyberattack of this scale.
Our source told us that Sony's security was "outdated and ineffective." The person described Sony's security policies as "idiotic" and cast doubt on Sony's claim that it used industry-standard security software.
<a href="http://recode.net/2014/12/07/sony-describes-hack-attack-as-unprecedented/">Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton sent a memo to staff</a> in the days after the hack occurred. In the email, he quoted a security researcher from Mandiant who suggested that Sony couldn't really have done anything to protect against the attack:
This attack is unprecedented in nature. The malware was undetectable by industry standard antivirus software and was damaging and unique enough to cause the FBI to release a flash alert to warn other organisations of this critical threat.
Our source described that letter as "pathetic," a criticism that has been shared by many security researchers. <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/12/08/sony-hack-unprecedented-undetectable/">Security researcher Adam Caudill told Mashable</a> that Sony Pictures and Mandriant described the attack as "unprecedented" only to save face. Another expert,&#xa0;Adrian Sanabria, told Mashable that "you should definitely be able to detect somebody copying 40GB of data systematically."
The employee who works with the Sony network said the company's internal IT team was "terrible," consisting of "incompetent people."&#xa0;
We saw evidence of just how poor Sony's security was in the files that hackers posted online. A series of documents stored in a folder named "Password" contained login information for administration accounts, social media accounts, and even SSL certificates. An SSL certificate digitally signs a web page to prove that it's from that company.
<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/548af7c2dd08957f158b4603-599-98/b4fp6daciaejvgv.png" border="0" alt="Sony password files">Sony</img>
Hackers used the passwords found in that folder to cause more damage, taking over Twitter accounts for Hollywood movies and using them to spread information about the hack.
<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5478902fdd08957b7a8b45f4-579-377/hacked-by-gop-sony-pictures-starship-troopers.0.png" border="0" alt="Sony Pictures Twitter hack"><a href="http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/11/sony-pictures-hackers-release-list-of-stolen-corporate-files/">Ars Technica</a></img>
The source close to Sony also claimed that the company hasn't learned from previous hacks.
In June 2011 the hacker group LulzSec, an offshoot from Anonymous, hacked into Sony Pictures. They claimed to have obtained "usernames, passwords, email addresses and dates of birth for thousands of people." The group used a common tactic against Sony Pictures, using an SQL injection attack to gain access to the company's computer network.
To our source's knowledge, nobody from Sony's computer security team was fired over that hack. That could mean that the same people who were meant to defend the company's servers in 2011 are still presiding over its security today.
We reached out to Sony for this story and will update if we hear back from them.

SONY INSIDER: 'The Security Team Has No F***ing Clue'

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5494717feab8eaf07b46e3c3-1200-924/kim-jong-un-103.jpg" border="0" alt="Kim Jong Un ">REUTERS/KCNANorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un.</img>The FBI announced Friday that in no uncertain terms <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-full-fbi-statement-calling-out-north-korea-for-the-sony-hack-2014-12">North Korea was behind the group called Guardians Of Peace (GOP) that hacked Sony</a> over the last few weeks.
The on-the-record announcement comes after unnamed US officials told The New York Times and other news outlets on Wednesday that they suspected North Korea was behind the hacks in apparent retaliation for the movie "The Interview" that depicted the assassination of that country's dictator,&#xa0;Kim Jong-un.
But those allegations didn't actually explain how North Korea pulled it off, fueling speculation that it had nothing to do with the hacks.
Over the last few days, a lot of people, many of them in the tech community, have come out against the government's narrative and tried to poke holes in its case.&#xa0;The theory among those skeptics is that the GOP is a so-called hacktivist group like The Syrian Electronic Army, LulzSec, or Anonymous acting independently from North Korea or any other state.
Here's a quick, high-level breakdown of the supposed holes people are finding in the FBI's case.
Kim Zetter of&#xa0;<a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/12/evidence-of-north-korea-hack-is-thin/">Wired has the most detailed roundup</a> of the thin evidence the government has linking North Korea to the GOP.&#xa0;
First, Zetter points out that the hackers are acting more like hactivists than cyber warriors employed by a nation state:
Nation-state attacks aren't generally as noisy, or announce themselves with an image of a blazing skeleton posted to infected computers, as occurred in the Sony hack. Nor do they use a catchy nom-de-hack like Guardians of Peace to identify themselves.
Zetter and other skeptics have also pointed to the FBI's lack of concrete evidence. The US intelligence community isn't telling us specifically how it was able to tie the attacks to North Korea and how the hackers were able to break into Sony, fueling speculation that the US government simply doesn't have that evidence.
Marc Rogers, a security blogger, <a href="http://marcrogers.org/2014/12/18/why-the-sony-hack-is-unlikely-to-be-the-work-of-north-korea/">wrote that he thinks the hackers deliberately used Korean</a> to throw the investigators off the trail and link the attacks to North Korea. Rogers also says the hackers used broken Korean, which he thinks is all the evidence we need to prove the hackers weren't actually from North Korea.
But the most common source of the skepticism is that the hackers masked their location, so it's nearly impossible to trace it to North Korea as the FBI claims to have done.
Finally, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hacker-time-bomb-in-sony-computer-network-2014-12">some experts think the hackers used a "time bomb" to infiltrate Sony</a>, a method that is relatively crude and often used by hacktivists, not by the kind of sophisticated cyber warriors that you'd expect North Korea to employ.
Of course, there's a counter to all of those arguments. If the FBI does have the evidence it says it has linking North Korea to the Sony hacks, it can't share that information. In fact, in its statement Friday, the FBI said it can't share all the evidence it has against North Korea because of a "need to protect sensitive sources."
And we can go on and on trying to poke holes in everyone's theories.
At this point, it almost doesn't matter who was behind the attacks. The hackers or terrorists or whatever you want to call them won this round. And they won because Sony let them by caving to their demands and shelving "The Interview" for good.&#xa0;
Sony <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sony-had-a-chance-to-beat-the-hackers-at-their-own-game-but-blew-it-2014-12">set a precedent that big corporations can cave to hackers' demands</a>. It doesn't matter if those hackers are backed by a state or just a group of kids causing trouble. When the next hack happens, there's now a better chance that another company will cave just like Sony did. The power is in the hackers' hands.

A Lot Of People Still Don't Believe The FBI's Story That North Korea Is To Blame For The Sony Hacks

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/53173823.cms" style="width: 800px; height: 600px;" />“We want to bring down the corporations, we want the government to fall, and we want to end the oppression of <keyword id="42111" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Wall-Street">Wall Street</keyword>. Our aim is to bring down the structure of power to a horizontal level. Where the elite will be destroyed and the oppressed will be empowered.” 
 
Hacktivists can be characterized as politically propelled programmers. Hacktivists are unlike other hackers, in light of the fact that their inspirations are driven by the quest for social change, instead of looking for benefit or scholarly interest. It’s a new controversial form of civic participation, which will in all likelihood keep on having an effect on the Internet and the world. 
 It has been asserted that anarchism has embraced a 'very irresolute' association with technology, 'wavering between a bitter critique driven by the experiences of industrialism, and an almost naive optimism around scientific development. Early anarchists, including Malatesta, Goldman and <keyword id="3487707" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="kropotkin">Kropotkin</keyword>, saw technology as giving workers an emancipatory potential from capitalism, while oppositional readings of innovation from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, in any case, strengthened the critical perspective that technology can just have the necessities of capital encoded into it from the start. 
 
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FI4HagtgTPQ?list=PLtoSlPOzD0YUlg32broDJlyKeccmhu027" width="560"></iframe>“Hacktivism is far from dead. We, by which I mean ourselves and our confidants, have broken into frameworks. We have mutilated sites, we have discharged information, we have disseminated that information to those we accept to be equipped for making utilization of the information, yet I feel unsatisfied with our outcomes. It's altogether conceivable that my desires are too high, yet a veritable dialog among hackers, and even potentially those seeking to resemble us, would be very valuable,” quoted a hacktivist. 
 
“Last came Anarchy; he rode 
On a white horse, splashed with blood; 
He was pale even to the lips, 
Like Death in the Apocalypse. 
 
And be wore a kingly crown; 
And in his grasp a sceptre shone; 
And on his brow this mark I saw-- 
I am God, and King, and Law!” – The Masque of Anarchy 
 
The Rise of Anarcho-Hacktivist Groups 
 
“We are<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/8-Things-That-Anonymous-The-Hacker-Terrorist-Group-Has-Done-For-Good/articleshow/21149861.cms"> Anonymous</a>. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us” 
 In recent years, newspapers have been loaded with news of online assaults against governments and corporate sites asserted by gatherings calling themselves <keyword id="169875" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="anonymous">Anonymous</keyword> and Lulzsec. Hactivism did not begin with Anonymous, in some ways it could be seen as a take after on to gatherings like the Yippies and the later Yes Men. Electronic disobidience retreats back to 1994, to gatherings like the Zippies, the Electronic Disturbance Theater, Milw0rm, The Electrohippies, The 1984 Network Liberty Alliance, and the Hackbloc collective. 
 The hacker association ‘Cult of the Dead Cow’ gave the term Hacktivism in 1996 and established the <keyword id="3487706" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="hacktivismo">Hacktivismo</keyword> group in 1999, which had created instruments to subvert restriction and aid freedom of access to data, for example, to help human rights activists in China. As opposed to Anonymous they don't regard website defacement or denial of service attacks as hactivism. 
 
Anonymous started on the message board 4chan, one of their crusades being directed against the Church of Scientology. In some ways, Anonymous are to a greater degree a strategy and outlook than an authentic firm gathering as such, as they have no order and control structure. 
 Those on the left are undoubtedly aware of gatherings like <keyword id="6409883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="wikileaks">Wikileaks</keyword> who have increased colossal media consideration and recognition by human rights and media straightforwardness by discharging reports to the general population which have unsettled the quills of lawmakers unwilling to having their filthy clothing broadcast out in the open. 
 
Anonymous rushed to act against Paypal when they solidified the record of Wikileaks -- an Anonymous statement explained that the organisations share similar goals of greater transparency and less censorship. 
 
‘V’ for Vendetta: We Are The Legion 
 
Not the majority of Anonymous' exercises include assaulting systems or sites. Anonymous has likewise been active in organising public protests. Be that as it may, the web and IRC channels are the soul of the gathering. If not for the Internet, Anonymous would've never existed. 
 
A Brief Introduction to Anonymous’ recent Agitations 
 
- Anonymous Vs the Church of Scientology: The inspiration driving the sudden clash identified with an inside limited time video for the Church, featuring Tom Cruise, which had been spilled onto the web. The substance was humiliating for the association and their famously forceful legitimate group instantly started issuing notices to bring down any site that facilitated the video with dangers of lawful activity in the event that they didn't agree. This struck at the very heart of issues that programmers at Anonymous held sacrosanct - free discourse and no-control. Their video reaction debilitated to demolish Scientology 'for the benefit of your supporters, for the benefit of humanity', denoting the start of a maintained battle of DDoS assaults, telephone tricks, and inevitably coming full circle with an invitation to battle for adherents to take to the avenues and picket Scientology workplaces around the globe. This appeared a possibly humiliating move for a hidden and unique group of programmers. So It came as a gigantic astound when the day arrived and more than 10,000 individuals gathered in a few noteworthy urban communities over the globe, numerous wearing the embraced characteristic of Anonymous - a Guy Fawkes cover like the one that showed up in the motion picture V for Vendetta. Hacktivism had left the dinky domains of cellars and rooms and turn out onto the boulevards. 
 
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JCbKv9yiLiQ" width="420"></iframe> 
- <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/How-the-hit-show-Mr-Robot-was-shaped-by-its-creators-experience-with-the-Arab-Spring/articleshow/51387169.cms">The Arab Spring</a>: It was shocking then that amidst those turbulent days the development had what numerous accept was its finest hour. After Wikileaks discharged the reports the site was expeditiously obstructed by the Tunisian government. Further examination of occasions in the North African nation uncovered charged rates of censorship, Facebook hacking to change hostile to government proclamations furthermore track the personalities of those taking a stand in opposition to the initiative. Anonymous individuals, working with kindred hacktivist bunch Telecomix, took out a few authority locales, and gave Tunisians apparatuses to stay away from discovery while on the web. The Tunisian president Ben Ali additionally had his servers hacked by activists and the data was sent to Wikileaks for them to showcase it on their site. At last the dictatorship toppled under the heaviness of online assault. 
 
- This start in the Arab Springs uprising offered fearlessness to those in Egypt who were additionally battling to expel their hid dictatorship. In striking back the administration strengths attempted to control web access for the entire country so that the general population would be kept from utilizing online networking to arrange themselves and convey a message of their situation to the world. Again Anonymous and Telecomix made sure show the footage of dissenters conflicting with forceful government powers outside the nation. They additionally made different dial-up web access points, taught Egyptians how to validate SSL keys and declarations to go around the forced confinements, and propelled their own DDoS attacks on government sites. 
 
- Operation Payback: This is how anonymous explained this operation 
 
“To whom it may concern, 
This is to inform you that we, Anonymous, are organizing an Operation called “Payback is a bitch”. Anonymous will be attacking the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), and their hired gun AIPLEX for attacks against the popular torrent and file sharing site, the Piratebay (www.thepiratebay.org). We will prevent users to access said enemy sites and we will keep them down for as long as we can. But why, you ask? Anonymous is tired of corporate interests controlling the internet and silencing the people’s rights to spread information, but more importantly, the right to SHARE with one another. The RIAA and the MPAA feign to aid the artists and their cause; yet they do no such thing. In their eyes is not hope, only dollar signs. Anonymous will not stand this any longer. We wish you the best of luck. 
 
Sincerely, 
Anonymous, 
We are legion.” 
 
Where, then, does this leave abstract hacktivism as a model for post-anarchist organization? On one-hand, abstract hacktivism offers a potent practical model for understanding how the interaction of human, social phenomena and nonhuman, material technology can produce dynamic socio-technical assemblages characterized by an experimental self-organization continually prototyping new forms of social and technological agency. Moreover, theoretically such organizational logic viewed through the lens of post-anarchism’s immanent space ensures that any such hacktivist assemblages are ultimately irreducible to universal identities, concepts and practices thus resisting any dominant forms of political, economic, technological, social or other ‘striation’, explains McQuillan in Critical hacktivism.

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