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According to law enforcement officials, it is the first time that core members of the worldwide hacking group “Anonymous” have been identified and charged in the U.S. On Tuesday, the Internet underworld was shaken by the news that one of the world’s most-feared anti-government hackers had turned over to the FBI and had been an FBI informer for months.
The hacker known to the internet world as Sabu and one of the most skilled leaders of Anonymous, has a Twitter account with some 45,000 followers and he regularly made anti-government comments.
Sabu was arrested by the FBI in June and turned out to be an unemployed computer programmer without college education and living on welfare in public housing in New York. His real name was Hector Xavier Monsegur. He once made a single mistake of posting online without cloaking his IP address. That was sufficient for law enforcement.
Following his arrest he started to aid FBI in further investigations culminating in charges against five core members of Anonymous spread across Europe and U.S. Monsegur and the other defendants had formed an elite group last May called LulzSec.
Other persons who have been charged with conspiracy to commit computer hacking and other crimes include Ryan Ackroyd of Doncaster, England; Jake Davis of Lerwick, Scotland; Darren Martyn of Galway, Ireland; Donncha O’Cearrbhail of Birr, Ireland; and Jeremy Hammond of Chicago. All of the accused are between 19 and 25 years of age.
Hammond from Chicago have been charged of stealing credit card information of approximately 60,000 credit card holders and for having made at least $700,000 off the stolen data by unauthorized charges.
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Sabu, or Hector Monsegur had pleaded guilty in August to charges including conspiracy to commit hacking, and admitted that he had stolen dozens of credit card numbers and also gave them to others or used them to pay his bills.
Prosecutors have alleged that among other incidents, Sabu was the ringleader of hackers who had brought down websites belonging to Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal because the companies refused to accept donations for Wikileaks.
Anonymous members have been trying to maintain a brave face, but the tension was palpable in chat rooms on the internet.
One Anonymous member posted on Twitter defiantly “Anonymous is a hydra, cut off one head and we grow two back.”
