Experts: Anonymous and LulzSec Should Focus Their Chaos

Hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec are doing themselves a disservice with random attacks and need to get more focused in order to accomplish their goals, according to a panel of computer security experts that convened during the DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas last week.

"We have an opportunity to not just cause chaos, but to cause organized chaos," said Josh Corman, research director at 451 Group. "I’m suggesting the actions in pursuit of their own goal compromise their goal. There’s a way to render more specific what they want to accomplish."

Corman went on to say that these groups would be better off focusing their attention on the more nefarious elements of the Internet such as "child-exploitation sites."

"That’s something we can all get behind," Corman said.

Another panelist seemed unimpressed with Anonymous’s recent hack of defense contractor ManTech International and said that both groups should focus their efforts on finding evidence of government corruption and exposing things like the Collateral Murder video that WikiLeaks published in 2010.

"If you’re going to do this, then find the real dirt," said the panelist, who appeared on stage in disguise (he later revealed himself as security blogger Krypt3ia).

The panel was moderated by Paul Roberts - editor of the ThreatPost security blog, Jericho - a founding member of Attrition.org, and many others.

Krypt3ia went on to accuse the groups of not having any real goals and that their general goal was to simply "smash things."

Jericho called on the community to "build a better Anonymous” that wouldn’t cause as much "collateral damage" from its activities and could have a beneficial effect on the security industry. He also suggested that Anonymous and LulzSec have a role to play in improving computer security by hacking companies that fail to secure their systems even after being warned about it.

Source: Ars Technica