Hacktivism: A New Form of Hacking with Political Motives

Running head: CYBER CRIME
CYBER CRIME
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Introduction
Hacking is generally referred to an unauthorised break in or intrusion in a private
network space. The person who is performing the task of hacking is known as a hacker. The
hacker can alter the system settings, delete crucial data, steal data or take control of a system
to achieve an objective that is different from the primary use of the system. Though it is not
necessary that hacking should be used for criminal purposes as ethical hacking is also utilised
by companies to enhance their existing securities. A hacker can employ various tools like
vulnerability scanner, packet sniffer, password cracking, viruses and key loggers to gain
control of a system.
In this report, a new form of hacking known as hacktivism will be discussed.
Hacktivism is the act of hacking into a system or a personal computer to steal data or harm
the system for politically or socially motivated reason. The people who involve in hacktivism
are known as hacktivist. In this report, the idea of hacktivism will be discussed and
substantiated with examples of case related to hacktivism. A hacktivist can work solo or in
groups like LulzSec to carry out their plans. In this report, the consequences of hacktivism
will be highlighted along with an analysis of the present system’s defence against such
attacks.
A hacktivist often uses the same tools and techniques as a hacker. The most common tool
used by a hacktivist is the Denial of Service or DoS attack which can be used to disrupt
online traffic of a particular site. Such sites can be of a government organisation or a private
company. The use of Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS is a federal offence in the United
States of America.
Types of Hacktivism
1. The hacktivist can try to change the code of the governmental websites to create
errors and display specific messages to the people visiting the website.
2. The hacktivist can copy a particular government website and make a duplicate of the
same website for malicious purposes.
3. The hacktivist may mirror an illegal site so that it can be still be accessed by the
public. For example, mirroring of illegal Torrent sites are still done around the world.
4. Geo-bombing is a technique of linking a YouTube video to a google earth or google
maps website in order to force display videos of political prisoners and social activists
of those areas.

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5. Anonymous blogging or whistleblowing is another form of hacktivism where a person
leaks sensitive government data to the public in order to harm the government or play
a certain political agenda.
6. Doxing is a another sort of hacktivism where large amount of information is gathered
from a particular site and then leaked to the public or sold to other companies for
malicious or political reasons.
Examples of Hacktivism events
There have been multiple accounts of hacktivism reported all around the world. A few of
those reports are given below:
1. Anonymous, a famous hacktivism group created and set up a website that they used to
distribute sensitive information to and from Iran during the 2009 Iranian elections.
2. In 2011, during Arab spring, many hacktivism groups were involved in protests and
supported the protestors. The hacktivists provided internet connections to the
protestors despite the internet ban implemented by the Egyptian government to
contain the protests by hacking into the government systems.
3. The first of million mask march happened in 2013 where the hacktivism group
Anonymous along with their supporters marched through Washington DC and
London.
4. In 2014, a group called the Guardians of Peace or GOP hacked into the Sony Pictures
Entertainment company and stole data over 100TB in size which contained personal
data of workers and many unreleased movies.
5. In 2016, a DYN attack disrupted services from multiple websites including Amazon.
It was carried out by a group called New World Hackers in revenge of arresting
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Consequences of Political Hacking
Political hacking or hacktivism can have serious implications on the government or
the country where it is happening. The implications for Australia and all over the world are
quite dire as countries around the world have invested millions to create a secure and
networked operation environment. Being a cyber developed country Australia can get
affected in a serious way if they fail to stop a politically motivated attack. If they do not act
promptly they will lose their influence over the regional cyber atmosphere and will need to
waste more money to reinforce the defence further and repair the damaged ends. The