The Anti Security Movement (also written as antisec and anti-sec) is a movement opposed to the

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...

industry. Antisec is against

full disclosure Full disclosure or Full Disclosure may refer to: Computers * Full disclosure (computer security), in computer security the practice of publishing analysis of software vulnerabilities as early as possible * Full disclosure (mailing list), a mail ...

of information relating to software vulnerabilities,

exploit Exploit means to take advantage of something (a person, situation, etc.) for one's own end, especially unethically or unjustifiably. Exploit can mean: * Exploitation of natural resources *Exploit (computer security) * Video game exploit *Exploita ...

s, exploitation techniques, hacking tools, attacking public outlets and distribution points of that information. The general thought behind this is that the computer security industry uses full disclosure to profit and develop scare-tactics to convince people into buying their firewalls, anti-virus software and auditing services. Movement followers have identified as targets of their cause: *websites such as

SecurityFocus SecurityFocus was an online computer security news portal and purveyor of information security services. Home to the well-known Bugtraq mailing list, SecurityFocus columnists and writers included former Department of Justice cybercrime A ...

, SecuriTeam, Packet Storm, and milw0rm, *mailing lists like "full-disclosure", "vuln-dev", "vendor-sec" and Bugtraq, and * public forums and IRC channels. In 2009, attacks against security communities such as Astalavista and milw0rm, and the popular image-host ImageShack, have given the movement worldwide media attention.

History

The start of most public attacks in the name of the anti-security movement started around 1999. The "anti-security movement" as it is understood today was coined by the following document which was initially an index on the anti.security.is website.

~el8

''~el8'' was one of the first anti-security hacktivist groups. The group waged war on the security industry with their popular assault known as "pr0j3kt m4yh3m". pr0j3kt m4yh3m was announced in the second issue of ~el8. The idea of the project was to eliminate all public outlets of security news and exploits. Some of ~el8's more notable targets included

Theo de Raadt Theo de Raadt (; ; born May 19, 1968) is a South African-born software engineer who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is the founder and leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects and was also a founding member of NetBSD. In 2004, De Raadt wo ...

, K2, Mixter, Ryan Russel (Blue Boar), Gotfault (also known as INSANITY), Chris McNab (so1o), jobe, , pm, aempirei, , lcamtuf, and

OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking N ...

's CVS repository. The group published four electronic

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very sma ...

which are available on textfiles.com.

pHC

pHC is an acronym for "Phrack High Council". This group also waged war against the security industry and continued to update their website with news, missions, and hack logs.

Less recent history

Most of the original groups such as ~el8 have grown tired of the anti-security movement and left the scene. New groups started to emerge.

dikline

kept a website which had an index of websites and people attacked by the group or submitted to them. Some of the more notable targets were rave, rosiello, unl0ck, nocturnal, r0t0r, silent, gotfault, and skew/tal0n.

More recent history

giest

In August 2008, mails were sent through the full-disclosure mailing list from a person/group known as "giest". Other targets include mwcollect.org in which the group released a tar.gz containing listens of their honeypot networks.

ZF0

ZF0 (Zer0 For Owned) performed numerous attacks in the name of pr0j3kt m4yh3m in 2009. They took targets such as Critical Security, Comodo and various others. They published 5 ezines in total. July 2009, Kevin Mitnick's website was targeted by ZF0, displaying gay pornography with the text "all a board the mantrain."

AntiSec Group

A group known as the "AntiSec Group" enters the scene by attacking groups/communities such as an Astalavista, a security auditing company named SSANZ and the popular image hosting website ImageShack. Graffiti reading "Antisec" began appearing in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

in June 2011 and was incorrectly associated with the original Antisec movement. According to CBS8, a local TV affiliate "People living in Mission Beach say the unusual graffiti first appeared last week on the boardwalk." They also reported "...it was quickly painted over, but the stenciled words were back Monday morning." It was later realized to be related to the new Anti-Sec movement started by

LulzSec LulzSec (a contraction for Lulz Security) was a black hat computer hacking group that claimed responsibility for several high profile attacks, including the compromise of user accounts from PlayStation Network in 2011. The group also claimed ...

and

Anonymous Anonymous may refer to: * Anonymity, the state of an individual's identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown ** Anonymous work, a work of art or literature that has an unnamed or unknown creator or author * Anonym ...

. On April 30, 2015 the AntiSec Movement reappeared and started

Doxing Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this in ...

police officers by hacking their databases. On April 30, 2015 they hacked into Madison Police Department and released officers names, address, phone numbers, and other personal data in relation to an Anonymous operation.

References

{{Reflist, 33em Hacking (computer security) Hacker groups Cyberattacks Internet-based activism