A new conflict began today. A war without guns, without bombs, yet, a high-stakes silent struggle fought on the worldwide online battlefield by a motley crew of covert cyber warriors.
Anonymous, the renowned hacking collective that refers to themselves as ‘hacktivists,’ scored a resounding victory with their opening move against ISIS. Reportedly, they managed to shut down hundreds of social media accounts they linked to Islamic State supporters.
The group have deemed their online hacking campaign against the extremist foe as “Operation ISIS” or #OpISIS. This preemptive cyber strike was prompted by last month’s deadly attack on the French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, that left over a dozen dead.
Anonymous’ success may be a major hammerblow to ISIS’ online propaganda strategy. The extremist organization have made extensive use of social media to promote their activities and get their message of terror across to the masses.
And ISIS themselves are not avert to hacking. Yesterday, a group identifying itself as the ‘CyberCaliphate’ hacked into Newsweek’s Twitter account.
But Anonymous’s own hacking onslaught may thwart ISIS reliance on social media platforms.
According to TheHackerNews.com, Anonymous have now released more than 100 social media accounts that they identified as Islamic militants.
The group’s war declaration speech went like this; ‘We will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails and expose you,” the group said on YouTube. “From now on, there [will be] no safe place for you online—you will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure. We own the internet.’
And they continued ‘We are students, administrators, workers, clerks, unemployed, rich, poor. We are young, or old, gay or straight. We wear smart clothes or Uggs. We come from all races, countries, religions, and ethnicity. United as one, divided by zero. We are Anonymous.’
What the next stage in the conflict will be remains to be seen.
The forces have been deployed and commands have been issued through the web’s darker paths.
The stage is set for the first online world war in history.