Hackers VS ISIS — A war has officially begun in the cyber world realm as an international team of brave hackers known as Anonymous threatened to unleash series of cyber-attacks against the vicious terrorist group, ISIS. The threat came after the bloody Paris attacks that killed 129 people over the weekend.
On a video posted on YouTube, a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask courageously called the Islamic State militants, who claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks, as "vermin" and vowed that their organization would hunt them down and would "launch the biggest operation ever." The video, which was originally in French, had already attracted more than one million views, Reuters noted.
"Anonymous from all over the world will hunt you down. We will launch the biggest operation ever against you," the masked person said in the video, as per Yahoo! Tech. "Expect massive cyber-attacks. War is declared. Get prepared."
"The French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity ever stronger," the hacker on the video added.
Over the past dozen years, Anonymous has been notoriously known as a loose-knit international network of activist hackers who have claimed responsibility for many cyber-attacks against the government, corporate and religious websites. And following the attack on French weekly Charlie Hebdo earlier this year, which led to the appalling deaths of 17 victims, the hackers have waged an online vigilante campaign to force the shutdown of Twitter profiles of alleged ISIS supporters.
Moreover, the hackers also claimed to have successfully taken down accounts and sites. Accounts associated with Anonymous claimed that it was responsible for the removal of more than 5,500 accounts. While the group previously concentrated on hacking social media accounts, they appeared to have stepped up their strategic schemes by revealing personal details of the militants.
Unfortunately, none of the details that have been shared could be independently confirmed. And according to Independent, the hackers have wrongly identified suspected ISIS militants in the past.
Meanwhile, the ISIS militants were unfazed by the threats of cyber-attacks from hacker activists Anonymous. As a matter of fact, the Islamic State terrorists responded by calling the organization as "idiots" and offered some instructions to avoid being hacked by the group, CNET reported. The message, which was posted in English and Arabic languages, was forwarded to multiple ISIS-affiliated Telegram channels.
"The #Anonymous hackers threatened in a new video release that will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots)," the statement read in part. "What they gonna hack? All they can do is hacking Alansar (ISIS-affiliated) Twitter accounts, emails, etc."
ISIS' message also went on to provide "instructions" on how to avoid potential hacks from Anonymous.
