With the notorious Lulzsec hacking group having announced its retirement yesterday, the Anonymous hacking group has stepped back into the fore.

The group Tweeted: Little teaser while we work on the actual release: Ever interested in anti-cyberterrorism training?

It has uploaded a "counter cyber-terrorism training file" to the internet. At first it was believed to come from a private security firm which was knocked offline (possibly due to excess traffic) as the story broke. However, it now appears as though the material may have come from a disc published in 2009 by America's FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) Counter Terrorism Defense Initiative training program. It is unclear where the disc's information actually was obtained from.

According to the website: "Using a mobile computer lab, SENTINEL provides free cybersecurity training directly to centralized rural and metropolitan areas of critical need across the country. The training focuses on enhancing the prevention, preparedness, and response capabilities of local, state, tribal, and rural public safety jurisdictions."

Among the files are:-

Many documents and links to security and hacking resources that are freely available on the internet.

Lists of FBI bureau addresses throughout the USA.

Stock letters on how to officially request user information from Internet Service Providers and obtain warrants.

Numerous hacking and counter-hacking tools.

Assimilating Lulzsec

With Lulzsec's last action being to pledge its Twitter support over to the @AnonymousIRC account, the latter picked up 60,000 new followers in 24 hours. The account just broke 100,000 followers and is growing fast. It also Tweeted:

We can confirm that all @LulzSec members have reported aboard. #AntiSec will have full support from #Anonymous and LulzSec. Expect us, soon.

This suggests that Lulzsec is likely to have disbanded only notionally with observers saying that its high-profile antics gave the individuals involved too much attention from rival hackers and law enforcement. By merging back into the larger Anonymous collective, it will be harder for individuals to be identified.

It looks like there will be many more leaks to come with Anonymous subsequently Tweeting (in what may be a related incident):-

We found a huge chest of 40 Terabytes internal data from some $evilcompany. Unsure how to carry, as most boats would sink. :/ #AntiSec