Anonymous: serious threat or mere annoyance?

Abstract

For a couple of weeks in December 2010, the Wikileaks ‘Cablegate’ controversy was in danger of being overshadowed by another, related phenomenon – Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks launched by the so-called Anonymous movement against organisations they deemed to be contrary to Wikileaks' interests. The attacks provoked a press frenzy that frequently exaggerated their effectiveness and missed at least one intriguing aspect – that they effectively relied on people infecting their own PCs. And by using their own computers, those doing the attacking were easily traceable. Steve Mansfield-Devine examines how these attacks work, how effective they are and their implications for the future. The attacks provoked a press frenzy that frequently exaggerated their effectiveness and missed at least one intriguing aspect – that they effectively relied on people infecting their own PCs. So how did these attacks work, how effective were they, and what are the implications?