Anonymous, joining Wikileaks, hacks into the big time

Anonymous, a hacker collective that stays true to its name, appears to be entering the big time.

After hacking the emails of Stratfor, the global intelligence firm, and on Monday cooperating with Wikileaks — already world famous for exposing classified US military documents and diplomatic cables — to publish those emails, Anonymous has gained a new level of notoriety among the public, and attention from authorities.

On Monday morning, twitter account @AnonymousIRC published a series of tweets revealing the hacker group as the source of the Stratfor emails and linking it to Wikileaks. Anonymous first accessed Stratfor's emails in December.

"We promised you those mails and now they'll finally be delivered. Five million (that's 5,000,000) emails at your pleasure," the tweet read.


Anonymous has long defended Wikileaks, most notably in its attacks against Visa, Mastercard and Paypal after those companies blocked customers from using their services to donate money to the secret-sharing site last year. But this appears to be the first time the two organizations have cooperated so directly.

Analysts say that Anonymous' collaboration with Wikileaks, along with recent hacks against the FBI and its release of a video Monday declaring "war" on the US government, has elevated the hacker group in the eyes of US security agencies from its previous status as a petty annoyance to a real threat.

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