A hacker linked to the group Anonymous has attacked a Dark Web hosting service after discovering that it was responsible for the management of child porn sites.
The hosting service targeted was Freedom Hosting II (FH2), and the hacker replaced the usual pages of the downed websites with a message directed at the accused service. The blow delivered by the hacker is said to have brought down over 10,000 ‘secret’ websites comprising the Dark Web.
The hacker has been in contact with the multi-media platform Motherboard, and it has been reported that visitors to these neutralised sites were presented with a message that said “Hello, Freedom Hosting II, you have been hacked”.
The hacker has said that the hosting service had to be aware of the nature of the websites it was managing, and an explanation of the reason for attack was included along with the message to Freedom Hosting II.
The data quota allowed by FH2 is 256MB per site, but some of the illegal sites were large and using gigabytes of material, which the hacker said in further comments to Motherboard, “suggests they paid for hosting and the admin knew of those sites. That’s when I decided to take it down instead.”
Read more: ‘Dark Web drug sales dominated by organised crime’.
The hacker said that the action was their “first hack ever”, explaining that they “just had the right idea”. This could possibly bring into question how easy it was for the individual to launch this cyber-attack and be successful.
The hacker said: “If there is ever going to be a chance like that again, I won’t say no to taking them down, but I do not plan to do so.” The vigilante said that the user data will be sent to a security researcher who will be able to carry out the process of tracking down the operators with law enforcement.
