Anonymous has hacked and released the private details of nearly 1,500 UN officials in retaliation against last week's arrest of protestors at a climate march in Paris.
The diffuse hacktivist network did so in response to the arrest of protestors at a march to herald the coming of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit, to be held on today on the outskirts of Paris.
Public gatherings have been largely restricted since the recent terrorist attacks in Paris which left 130 dead and countless others wounded. Since a State of Emergency was declared large gatherings have been banned. But the climate march was organised despite this, drawing many to celebrate the cause of combatting climate change ahead of the summit.
The organisers of what would have otherwise been a peaceful march, say that the the protest was hijacked by anti-capitalists and ‘black bloc' members who violently clashed with Paris police, armed with tear gas, on the Place de la Republique. When the smoke cleared 100 protesters were arrested.
Anonymous responded by releasing the login details of 1,415 UN officials from around the world. The released information contained names, numbers, email addresses, usernames as well as secret questions and answers.
The hacktivist groups used the common SQL injection attack to get at the UN officials' details which were using a dated algorithm to hash passwords.
Anonymous has recently been active in attempting to shut down Islamic State social media accounts, in retaliation for the recent Paris attacks. The effectiveness of such campaigns has been called into question by various hacktivists and bloggers. Sean Sullivan, a security advisor with F-Secure, told SCMagazineUK.com at the time that Anonymous' hacktivism is often amateurish and fails to meet its objectives: “Anonymous has a strong 'brand'. But its professionalism and organisation has always been overrated. The Church of Scientology is still around the last I checked.”
