Anonymous is behind those massive cyberattacks in Turkey

By Lulu Chang December 27, 2015

anonymous — Neydt/123RF

It isn’t just ISIS that Anonymous has declared war against — it’s all its friends as well. The hacktivist group has claimed responsibility for the series of cyberattacks in Turkey that have taken some 400,000 websites offline, and promises to continue in its nefarious activities, as long as it believes that the Turkish government is aiding the terrorist group.

The two-week long attack is considered the most intense in Turkish history, and targeted a number of key government websites, as well as financial institutions. The campaign only grew stronger over Christmas, upon which Anonymous’ distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks resulted in the disruption of services and transactions for a number of state-run sites and banks.

“Dear government of Turkey, if you don’t stop supporting Isis, we will continue attacking your internet, your root DNS, your banks and take your government sites down,” said a voice in a video (which has now been removed from YouTube) released by the hacking group.

“After the root DNS we will start to hit your airports, military assets and private state connections,” the ominous voice added. “We will destroy your critical banking infrastructure.”

Turkish officials were only able to stop the attack after it blocked all foreign Internet traffic, locking down the country’s digital border. This, however, hardly seems like a sustainable solution moving forward.

Previously, Turkey suspected Russia of being behind the crippling attacks, perhaps in retaliation for the Russian jet that was downed earlier in November. Russian President Vladimir Putin has himself labeled the Turkish government “accomplices of terrorists.” President Barack Obama has also urged Turkey to more closely monitor its borders with Syria (apparently to no avail), and American officials have noted the country is not doing its part to stymie the oil-smuggling trade that finances much of ISIS’ operations. All this, Anonymous believes, is evidence of Turkey’s association with the terrorists.

“Stop this insanity now, Turkey,” said the hackers. “Your fate is in your hands.”

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