Twitter users tricked into joining cyberattacks against US govt
Twitter users are being tricked into joining Anonymous cyber attacks on the US government, and could be jailed for the cybercrime, security experts have warned.
They said a hacker group Anonymous is trying to trick its 249,000 Twitter followers by sending them links, which makes their computers a part of its denial of service attacks launched on US government sites.
Users who click the links inevitably become a part of Anonymous' attacks, which can be launched only by relying on thousands of personal computers to crash the government websites.
"I'm not sure if participants in this instance would get away with claiming that they innocently clicked on links by mistake," The Daily Mail quoted Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley, as saying.
"This change in tactic from Anonymous, which allows attacks to be launched by simply clicking on a link, means that Internet users need to be extremely careful when clicking on unknown URLs or they could unwittingly be joining this latest zombie army," he added.
The cyberattacks are a part of Anonymous' 'Operation Megaupload', which was launched to protest the shutdown of a file-sharing site.
They said a hacker group Anonymous is trying to trick its 249,000 Twitter followers by sending them links, which makes their computers a part of its denial of service attacks launched on US government sites.
Users who click the links inevitably become a part of Anonymous' attacks, which can be launched only by relying on thousands of personal computers to crash the government websites.
"I'm not sure if participants in this instance would get away with claiming that they innocently clicked on links by mistake," The Daily Mail quoted Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley, as saying.
"This change in tactic from Anonymous, which allows attacks to be launched by simply clicking on a link, means that Internet users need to be extremely careful when clicking on unknown URLs or they could unwittingly be joining this latest zombie army," he added.
The cyberattacks are a part of Anonymous' 'Operation Megaupload', which was launched to protest the shutdown of a file-sharing site.
