US govt security advice site trashed by hackers

Anonymous and LulzSec members have hacked US government security web site OnGuard Online and defaced it, forcing it offline, in retaliation for the recent MegaUpload takedown and the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the groups have announced.

Anonymous has been ramping up its opposition to ACTA on Twitter via the #ActAgainstACTA hashtag and has been a vocal opponent of the US government’s move to silence file-sharing site MegaUpload last week and arrest the men behind it.

Late on Monday local time, Anonymous tweeted from one of its official accounts that it had hacked the OnGuard Online site, which is managed by the Federal Trade Commission and is similar to the UK’s Get Safe Online.

At the time it defaced the site with a message, also posted to Pastebin, detailing its beef with the authorities. The site is now down, presumably as its admins work out how to clean it up while addressing the security flaws which made the hack possible in the first place.

“umad? don't like it when your site is wiped of the internet do you? If SOPA/PIPA/ACTA passes we will wage a relentless war against the corporate internet, destroying dozens upon dozens of government and company web sites,” the message read.

“As you are reading this we are amassing our allied armies of darkness, preparing boatloads of stolen booty for our next raid. We are sitting on hundreds of rooted servers getting ready to drop all your mysql dumps and mail spools. Your passwords? Your precious bank accounts? Even your online dating details?! You ain't even trying to step to this.”

Alongside the message were the email addresses of FTC employees as well as a lengthy log of the hack itself.

The attack was launched under the banner of the AntiSec campaign waged by members of Anonymous and LulzSec against law enforcement and government agencies since last summer.

With SOPA and PIPA both still far from dead and ACTA getting ever closer to ratification by the European Union, the next few weeks could be a busy time for web security teams and hacktivists alike.

In Poland, for example, the majority of government websites were taken offline at the weekend after a DDoS attack from Anonymous protesting ACTA.

The FTC could not immediately be reached for comment. OnGuard Online was still down at the time of publication. ®