Borrowed from Anonymous’ Twitter page.
As if the job of the Secret Service weren’t stressful enough with the State of the Union address coming up, now they have to worry about more than just physical threats, they have to combat cyber threats. Hacker group Anonymous now threatens that the address “WILL be cancelled” if congress approves the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
Although it seems as though it would be an extremely difficult task, the logistics of the hack don’t seem so far-fetched. Although the feed coming out of the nation’s capital is highly secured by the government’s various firewalls and encryptions, the data coming into the networks and then out to the nation and the world is much less secure. Digital switching centers, relay points, and broadcasting stations are all easy targets for a determined group like Anonymous.
The group is associated with several threats against major companies including Facebook, yet amid recent attacks on social media networks it does not appear Anonymous is responsible for any of them. So unless they are able to do some serious damage to the State of the Union with “Operation SOTU” they will quickly become known as the hackers that cried wolf one too many times. Like during legislative battles in the past, the group is showing its teeth in the battle against this most recent legislation.
The Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing Protection Act (CISPA) aims to allow for companies to provide more detailed information to the government about cyber threats and security breaches, which will aid in making the nation’s networks more secure. Anonymous has long been opposed to the bill, much like their opposition to SOPA and other internet security bills that have been brought to congress in the past few years. This threat, which seems to have originated from the group’s Twitter account (@YourAnonNews) in a post on February 12th at 1:38 AM, is one of many very public threats made on the feed.
Although it appears there will be a battle in congress over this bill, in the following days it will become evident as to if there was a battle going on to secure President Obama’s speech tonight. Maybe this time the group will truly pull off something ex
