CWA's MO is called "social engineering" -- they'd impersonate their victims and call internet and phone providers' customer support hotlines in order to get confidential info and to reset their targets' passwords. The group stole 40 attachments from Brennan's email, some of which were published by Wikileaks. They also broke into Clapper's and his wife's emails, home phone and internet connection. While in control of Clapper's FIOS connection, they said they redirected all calls to his number to the Free the Palestine movement. The group stole and leaked the contact info of 20,000 FBI personnel, as well.

After Gamble and another 15-year-old CWA member were arrested in 2016, the remaining members told Motherboard that they will only stop their activities if the US cuts ties with Israel. Gamble's lawyer said he never meant traumatize people on an individual basis: "In a naive, immature and childish way," the lawyer said in court, "he thought he could do something about it, he could make a nuisance of himself by targeting people in America and that would somehow get them to change US policy as a result of what he was doing from his bedroom." The judge, however, disagreed, calling CWA a "cyber gang" that ran "an extremely nasty campaign of politically-motivated cyber terrorism."