Numerous websites hacked as November 5 hacking spree begins…

PayPal, Symantec hacked

By Violet Blue

The press arm for Anonymous has announced that it has begun its hacking spree for the 5th of November – Guy Fawkes Day.

Claims are circulating that hackers – some affilaited with Anonymous, and some not – have dumped user and employee account information on accounts from PayPal, Symantec, the defacement of Saturday Night Live’s website, Australian government websites and much more.

CLARIFICATION: Claim for Symantec goes to @Doxbin, and they have stated that “HTP is not affiliated with Anonymous.”

UPDATE Nov. 4, 10:20 PM PST: Anonymous has claimed a document dump on The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) “the world’s largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization.”

UPDATE Nov. 5, 12:20 AM PST: Reagrding Anonymous’ post of docs and statement it hacked PayPal, PayPal’s head of PR has tweeted that there is “no evidence to validate this claim.” Yet at the time of this writing Anonymous Australia posted this URL to a PrivatePaste page – linking to five pages of data on an estimated 27,935 PayPal accounts. Within the past few hours that PrivatePaste page has since been removed.

UPDATE Nov. 5, 11:38 AM PST: PayPal has responded to request for comment and Anuj Nayar (PayPal’s Senior Director of Communications) tells me via email, “It appears that the exploit was not directed at PayPal after all, it was directed at a company called ZPanel. The original  story that started this and was retweeted by some of the Anonymous Twitter handles has now been updated.” PayPal sent me this link to Cyberwars’ newly updated post (the primary post information originated from).

/End updates

Monday’s main focus seems to be an anti-suveillance protest – like with the recent Anonymous October 20 protest – with November 5th intent aimed at surveillance systems such as TrapWire and INDECT.

Trapwire and INDECT’s opponents believe that the surveillance systems to be direct threats to privacy and certain civil freedoms and that their implementation could constitute human rights violations.

According to the various Anonymous Twitter accounts announcing the hacks and linking to document dumps, this is just the beginning of doc dumps and defacements for its day of protest. News of the protest is being shared on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Pastebin.

Anonymous Australia @AuAnon

Australian Government qla.org.au Hacked by Anonymous for Nov 5th

The hacktivists have also included in its Nov. 5th announcements tonight the hacking and defacement of Australian government sites, ImageShack and PayPal (claiming a zero day exploit), Ascension Australia, NBC.com and Lady Gaga‘s fan site (claimed for the spree by “Pyknic”), Saturday Night Live’s website, the Jimmy Fallon and Jay Leno portals, Australian steel and mining company Arcelor Mittal, homewares website GiftNow, the Greek City website, the Ghana Consulate website, and claim to have leaked VMware ESX Server Kernel source code via twitter today.

Anonymous Australia seems to be the most active at this time.

At the same time, the press arm for Anonymous has announced – via a press release on Pastebin – that it is rallying the public for an in-person V For Vendetta protest at The Houses of Parliament, at 8PM in London.

Protesters in Canada will get a rude surprise if they don Guy Fawkes masks – because last week Canada’s House of Commons approved a bill that bans people from hiding their faces during riots.

We’re watching and following the developments as they happen.

And right now they’re happening fast – and furiously.

Source

NBC sites OK again after hacking

Several NBC websites were hacked Sunday by a person or group calling itself “pyknic”and suggesting a possible link to the cyber-attack group Anonymous.

It appeared that the defacement of the affected sub-sites was cleaned up in a couple hours. NBC and its various websites appeared to be functioning normally as of Sunday evening. However, older versions maintained by search engines such as Google or Bing still bore the message “hacked by pyknic.”

The message said: “Remember, remember the fifth of November.” That reference suggested a link to Anonymous, a movement of cyber rebels.

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