Anonymous plans to attack Federal Reserve tomorrow
14 Jun 2011
The Anonymous hacker group says it plans to attack the Federal Reserve starting tomorrow, most likely with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack aimed at shutting down the agency's web site.
The group's video on YouTube has called for public protests until the Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke steps down. The campaign, dubbed Operation Empire State Rebellion, is timed to coincide with 14 June, which is Flag Day in the US and commemorates the adoption of the national flag in 1777.
The group, which organises random anonymous internet users and gets them to turn their computers against targets in DoS attacks, is critical of the Federal Reserve's involvement in the global financial crisis and, according to it, is the politicisation of the global banking industry.
This weekend, the group attacked the site of the Spanish national police, in a retaliatory action against the arrest, last week, of three people allegedly connected with the group. (See: Spanish police arrest three alleged members of Anonymous).The group, last week, also hit a Turkish government site.
Other targets of the group have been Iran and Egypt, but the group is mostly known for its DDoS attack on Sony in early April as also attacks against PayPal, Visa and MasterCard sites last year after those companies blocked contributions to WikiLeaks through their sites.
Meanwhile, a break in at the network of the International Monetary Fund has been recently reported with data theft although Anonymous is not believed to be connected with the attack.
