What 'Hacktivist' Arrests Mean for You

FORT WORTH, Mar 07, 2012 (KDAF-TV - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The hacker group 'Anonymous' is gaining traction and notoriety across the globe for coordinated cyber-attacks on state organizations and companies.

"Every person that does wrong things is justifying them somehow. These people are justifying it by political considerations, or economic equality reasons or other things. but they're still doing wrong things to accomplish their goals," said Sunny Lowe, of Blue Jean Networks.

Last week, Interpol arrested 25 people with suspected links to Anonymous.

This week, one of the leaders LulzSec, known as "the real Sabu" was unmasked as an informant for the FBI. That led to the arrests of five more Anonymous members.

Lowe says you shouldn't expect those arrests will deter hackers from continuing cyber-attacks.

"These are worldwide groups. There are billions of people in this world, and I know there are millions that are competent hackers," said Lowe.

The group has threatened to shut down Facebook and even the internet. That hasn't happened, but political and corporate leaders are taking notice.

"The people in charge are really concerned, and they really realize the threat that we're at," said Lowe.

FBI Director Robert Mueller recently said that cyber-attacks will soon surpass terrorism as the number one threat facing the US.

So, what does this all mean the common computer user? Well, there's some good news: you probably are not a target of Anonymous.

"These guys no longer work on one system at a time," said Lowe.

But, the bad news is many hackers target large groups of computers, installing software without your knowledge. It doesn't matter if your computer is alone in your living room or part of a 100-computer network, any compromised computer can become a 'bot.' Once your computer is compromised, hackers can access it whenever they want.

"You can become a hacked computer by going to an inappropriate website, or not having good anti-virus software," said Lowe.

So, protect yourself.

"Don't worry about the guys that got arrested. Worry about what you're going to be dealing with that next day," said Margaret Perez, founder of Tech Support Mobile Services.

At Tech Support in fort worth, technicians see infected computers every day.

"It was a mess. It was a total mess. I couldn't get into my work, my customer base and it scared me to death. I had some viruses going on, didn't even realize it," said business-owner Terry Watters. That was a few years ago. Now, Watters is vigilant about computer security.

"You have to do security updates. You have to do anti-virus, good anti-virus, and you have to be working from a clean point," said Perez.

"There are aggressive forces in this world that don't like the fact that they don't have what you have," said Lowe.

___ (c)2012 KDAF-TV (Dallas) Visit KDAF-TV (Dallas) at www.the33tv.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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