A group of international activist hackers have declared war against the Islamic State following its attack on Paris last Nov. 13, which killed 129 people and injured hundreds. Anonymous declared their intent to hunt down the terrorist group in a video that was posted on YouTube Monday, Reuters reported.
As its standard operating procedure, a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask appeared in the video as he read the statement of Anonymous. "These attacks cannot remain unpunished," the message said in French. "We are going to launch the biggest operation ever against you. Expect many cyberattacks. War has been declared. Get ready."
Per BBC, Anonymous also made similar threats in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks early this year in France. Apparently, the activist hackers disabled thousands of social media accounts linked to the Islamic State as a result and analysts said Anonymous may do the same again.
"It means we're likely to see attacks on the IS website, any related websites, recruitment sites, social media and if Anonymous goes down the hacking route this time, it could mean communications disrupted too," said technology expert Dan Simmons.
Another analyst said Anonymous will aim to disrupt IS operations. "But it's disruption rather than meaningful challenge. It won't solve the problem. It'll be interesting to see if it goes further than they have before," said security analyst Charlie Winter via BBC.
Foreign Policy Magazine reported that Anonymous' conflict with ISIS has been going on even before the attacks in France, but Charlie Hebdo incident became the tipping point. However, Anonymous' action is being questioned by some quarters as even high profile technology companies, which deal with government intelligence agencies and have the capacity to do the same online disruptions as Anonymous are not doing going by this route. Per Mashable, the U.S. Intelligence would actually prefer to have terrorists active on the internet as it will be easier to keep track of them.
"Whether or not it makes more sense to be trying to quash this kind of communication so they can't get their message out, intel folks would always want them to have it more open," said Pentagon's Jason Healey.
"Right now I could get online and I could watch ISIL on social media and tell you where they are operating, which countries they're from and who they're working with," Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Institute told Mashable.
Watch the video posted by Anonymous addressed to the Islamic State:
