Anonymous hackers: Sites they claim to have breached

A day after many Web sites participated in a protest against the SOPA anti-piracy bill, the Justice Department announced it was shutting down file-sharing site Megaupload.com over piracy violations. Soon after, Anonymous took credit for shutting down the federal agency’s Web site. Here’s a look at other cyberattacks the informal hacking group has claimed credit for.

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Justice Department

On Jan. 19, the Justice Department shut down massive file-sharing Web site Megaupload.com, accusing its executives of violating piracy laws. Shortly thereafter, Anonymous took credit on Twitter for taking down the government agency's Web site.

/ AP

Recording industry groups

The informal group of hackers also said in its Jan. 19 tweet that it was taking down "record label sites." Soon after, the site of at least one firm, Universal Music Group, was down.

/ AP

PayPal

In 2010, online payment site PayPal made the decision to freeze WikiLeaks' account after the latter released thousands of secret State Department cables on the Web. Anonymous, which sympathizes with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, subsequently attacked Paypal's system. In July, the Justice Department announced that 14 people were arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack.

Michael Nagle / Bloomberg

Visa, MasterCard

One of the group's first prominent attacks, Anonymous targeted Mastercard,Visa, Paypal and a number of other payment processing companies stopped donation transactions to the WikiLeaks group.

Norm Betts / Bloomberg

Sony

The group targeted the electronics giant with OpSony, a movement in protest of the company’s lawsuits against George “geohot” Hotz and Alexander “graf_chokolo” Egorenkov. Both men were accused of facilitating piracy with code designed to allow PlayStation 3 users to run other operating systems on the console.

Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters

Stratfor

Security analysis firm Stratfor was forced to acknowledged that it had not encrypted its customers financial information after Anonymous targeted the company for playing "fast and loose with their customers’ private and sensitive information," the AP reported.

/ AP

NATO

Anonymous claimed it hacked into NATO servers and stole 1 gigabyte of sensitive information as part of its campaign to harass and humiliate prominent targets, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima reported. The group attempted to post online some documents collected in the incident and vows to post more soon, but it also said it has decided to withhold some others because posting them would be “irresponsible.” NATO did not confirm the group’s account.

/ AP

FBI Contractors

An associated hacker group, LulzSec claimed to breach files at an FBI affiliate based in Atlanta. The Washington Post's Hayley Tsukayama reported. InfraGard, which is part of a public-private cybersecurity partnership with the agency, confirmed that about 180 passwords and usernames had been leaked and posted on the Internet. The passwords appeared to include users from cybersecurity firms and the U.S. Army.

/ AP

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