Anonymous

The trail to the New York apartment where a hacker named "Sabu" of LulzSec and Anonymous fame was arrested last June can be traced back to a former Anonymous participant who turned against the group over its WikiLeaks activities.

Sabu, whose name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, pleaded guilty to computer hacking charges in August and spent the last six months working as an informant for the FBI. The undercover operation led to hacking-related charges being filed against four alleged cohorts in the U.K., Ireland, and Chicago yesterday.

Did the FBI know in advance of the Stratfor hack, but let it happen in order to gather evidence?

Soon after the news broke yesterday (March 6) about the arrest and cooperation of turncoat Anonymous and Lulzsec hacker Hector Xavier Monsegur, known online as "Sabu," the Justice Department released chatroom transcripts that imply the FBI knew in advance of the devastating attack in December upon the Austin, Texas geopolitical analysis firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc.

The Vatican Website apparently is the latest victim of the hacker group Anonymous, reportedly taken down March 7 in protest of everything from the Catholic Church’s doctrine and tenets to the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The Vatican’s Website, at www.vatican.va, was down for a while March 7, though appeared to back up and running by 5 p.m. ET. A Vatican spokesman confirmed with the Associated Press that the site was down, but declined to speculate on the cause.

Considering Anonymous’ disparate nature, and no central authority calling the shots, it’s a surprise this group has not turned on each other already. Antivirus firm Symantec reports that associates of the group are finding themselves victims of denial-of-service software that has been infected by a Trojan horse.

In a predictable backlash against the sweep that has netted suspected LulzSec members in America and Europe, Anonymous has defaced some Web pages of the security firm Panda Security.

As previously reported by The Register, the arrests turned on the assistance of Hector Xavier Monsegur, known in LulzSec circles as Sabu. Anonymous has added another name-to-blame to the list, accusing Panda Security of helping the FBI by infiltrating chat rooms and message boards.

According to the FBI, you're looking at Sabu, the head of LulzSec, and the de facto King of Anonymous—easily the most notorious and influential hacker alive today. One thing: he just turned in his people to the police.

Hacker group Anonymous changed passages of the new Hungarian constitution on the website of the Constitutional Court, internet portal Index reported on Sunday.

According to Index, the hackers added several passages to the basic law, such as stipulations that those working in IT jobs could retire at age 32, and should be entitled to pensions equal to 150 percent of their salaries. Another new section said that Anonymous and other grass-roots IT groups should fight internal or external threats against the country.

Businesses are not taking Anonymous and hacktivism seriously enough, according to an FBI special agent.

Interpol’s Web site went down Tuesday just hours after the international police agency announced the arrest of 25 suspected members of the hacking collective Anonymous in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain.

On Twitter, hackers affiliated with Anonymous took credit for the attack and openly encouraged their sympathizers to keep Interpol’s site offline by flooding its servers with traffic.

Interpol said Tuesday that 25 suspected members of the loose-knit Anonymous hacker movement have been arrested in a sweep across Europe and South America.

The international police agency said in a statement that the arrests in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain were carried out by national law enforcement officers working under the support of Interpol's Latin American Working Group of Experts on Information Technology Crime.