Unmasked - Ars Technica [7]
“He seriously works at a security company?”
Never forgive, never forget
Anonymous doesn’t like to let up. Barr’s Twitter account remains compromised, sprinkled with profane taunts. The HBGary websites remain down. The e-mails of three key players were leaked via BitTorrent, stuffed as they were with nondisclosure agreements, confidential documents, salary numbers, and other sensitive data that had nothing to do with Anonymous.
And they have more information—such as the e-mails of Greg Hoglund, Leavy’s husband and the operator of rootkit.org (which was also taken down by the group).
When Leavy showed up to plead her case, asking Anonymous to at least stop distributing the e-mails, the hivemind reveled in its power over Leavy and her company, resorting eventually to tough demands against Barr.
“Simple: fire Aaron, have him admit defeat in a public statement,” said Topiary, when asked what the group wanted. “We won’t bother you further after this, but what we’ve done can’t be taken back. Realize that, and for the company’s sake, dispose of Aaron.”
Others demanded an immediate “burn notice” on Barr and donations to Bradley Manning, the young military member now in solitary confinement on suspicion of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.
The hack unfolded at the worst possible time for HBGary Federal. The company was trying to sell, hopefully for around $2 million, but the two best potential buyers started to drag their heels. “They want to see delivery on pipeline before paying those prices,” Leavy wrote to Barr. “So initial payout is going to be lower with both companies I am talking with. That said our pipeline continues to drag out as customers are in no hurry to get things done quickly so if we dont sell soon and our customers dont come through soon we are going to have cash flow issues.”
And being blasted off the ‘Net by Anonymous is practically the last thing a company in such a situation needs. After the attacks, Leavy told the Financial Times that they cost HBGary millions of dollars.
“I wish it had been handled differently,” she added.
“The Internet is here”
And who were Barr and his company up against in all this? According to Anonymous, a five-member team took down HBGary Federal and rootkit.com, in part through the very sort of social engineering Barr had tried to employ against Anonymous.
One of those five was allegedly a 16-year old girl, who “social engineered your admin jussi and got root to rootkit.com,” one Anonymous member explained in IRC.
Another, pleased with power, harrassed Penny Leavy and her husband, who sat beside her during the chat: “How does it feel to get hacked by a 16yr old girl?” One can almost hear the taunt echoing from some kind of grade school playground.
The attackers are quintessentially Anonymous: young, technically sophisticated, brash, and crassly juvenile, all at the same time. And it’s getting ever more difficult to dismiss Anonymous’ hacker activity as the harmless result of a few mask-wearing buffoons.
Perhaps the entire strange story can be best summed up by a single picture, one that Barr e-mailed to two of his colleagues back on January 28. “Oh fuck,” it says beneath a picture of an Anonymous real-world protest. “The Internet is here.”
Aaron Barr, CEO of security company HBGary Federal, spent the month of January trying to uncover the real identities of the hacker collective Anonymous—only to end with his company website knocked offline, his e-mails stolen, 1TB of backups deleted, and his personal iPad wiped when Anonymous found out.
Our lengthy investigation of that story generated such interest that we wanted to flesh out one compelling facet of the story in even more detail. In a sea of technical jargon, social media analysis, and digital detective work, it stands out as a truly human moment, when Barr revealed himself to Anonymous and dialogued directly with senior leaders and “members” of the group.
The encounter began on February 5. Barr had managed to get his work written up in a