HBGary. Down the rabbit hole. And don’t mess with Anonymous

I’ve been remiss on posting about the escalating HBGary scandal. They’re a shadowy cybersecurity company who pitched clients like BofA on how they could destroy Wikileaks for them. Their CEO boasted they could take down Anonymous and instead the company got their head handed to them on a platter.

Forbes



Last week, the hacker group Anonymous released more than 40,000 of HBGary Federal’s emails, followed by another 27,000 from its sister company, HBGary, over the weekend. Those files, stolen in retaliation for an attempt by HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr to penetrate Anonymous and identify its members, revealed a long list of borderline illegal tactics.

ArsTechnica has the definitive timeline. HBGary is now in full crisis mode and has cancelled all appearances at security conferences

They had tentacles everywhere (I say “had” as the company is probably toast. Who would want to do business with a supposed security company that is so tainted and more important, couldn’t even secure their own website?)

Agonist and Firedoglake have extensive coverage. Here’s a few links.

Security firms pitching Bank of America on WikiLeaks response proposed targeting Glenn Greenwald

The disinformation campaign Bank of America considered

HBGary Fees: “Damn it feels good to be a gangsta”. They wanted to charge the Chamber of Commerce $2 million to destroy activists who oppose the Chamber. WaPo has more.

HBGary And The FBI. They offer to give the FBI data and asked for favors in return. Hand in glove.

Enemies list. No doubt including bloggers too.

HBGary had a genuine copy of Stuxnet, malware archives, and bots. If I had that on here on Polizeros I’d probably get arrested.

No matter how paranoid you are, the bastards are always doing more than you think they are. How many other, presumably more competent HBGary’s are out there, doing disinfo and character assassination at the behest of corporate clients?