Antisec Hackers Attack Symantec, Police Gear Supplier

Hackers associated with the group Anonymous on March 9 continued its retaliation for the arrests earlier in the week of members of the LulzSec hacker group, this time attacking the Website of New York Ironworks while publishing outdated source code from security software maker Symantec.

New York Ironworks is a company that supplies police equipment, tactical gear and other accessories to the New York City Police Department. The company’s homepage was attacked by a group called Antisec€”which is associated with Anonymous€”and reportedly was replaced with a obscenity-laced tirade railing against the FBI for the March 6 arrests of the five people, which included one person said to be a member of Anonymous.

The Antisec hackers said the attack and the message were a tribute to Jeremy Hammond, a Chicago man whose online names included “Anarchaos” and who was arrested in the police sweeps in the United States and Europe. He was arrested as part of the probe into the LulzSec hacker group, which went on a 50-day spree last year.

The New York Ironworks site was inaccessible late in the afternoon March 9.

In addition, Antisec hackers published source code to Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus 2006 software on the Internet. A Symantec spokesman told Reuters the release of the source code was not a risk to Norton customers. “The code that has been exposed is so old that current out-of-the-box security settings will suffice against any possible threats that might materialize as a result of this incident,” spokesman Cris Paden told the news organization.

Hackers with Anonymous in February published the source code to the company’s pcAnywhere software. That caused more problems, with Symantec initially telling customers to disable the product. Once a fix was issued, the company said users could start using it again.

This was the second time that hackers claiming to be associated with Anonymous attacked Websites in response to the LulzSec arrests. They took down Panda Security’s PandaLabs Website for a while March 7, in retaliation for the company’s efforts in helping authorities track down hackers around the world.

They also taunted the FBI and had words for Hector Xavier Monsegur, a New York City resident and alleged leader of the LulzSec group, whose cooperation with authorities helped lead to the arrests March 6. Monsegur reportedly had used the online name “Sabu” in his work with LulzSec. “Yeah yeah, we know, Sabu snitched on us,” a message on the Hacked PandaLabs page reportedly said. “As usually happens, FBI menaced him to take his sons away. We understand, but we were your family, too.”

Arrested were Hammond; Ryan Ackroyd (“Kayla”) and Jake Davis (“Topiary”) from London; and Darren Martyn (“pwnsauce”) and Donncha O’Cearrbhail (“palladium”) from Ireland. Authorities believe Hammond was a key figure in the hacking of Stratfor Global Intelligence, a U.S.-based security company whose email system was hacked and several million emails stolen.

During its 50-day spree last year, LulzSec targeted some U.S. and British government sites, as well as companies, such as Sony. After the group ended its attacks, reports had some members of LulzSec joining with Anonymous.