ISIS responded to hacker collective Anonymous’ declaration of “total war” on Monday, scoffing at the threats and calling the group “idiots.”
Anonymous warned ISIS to “be prepared” for their “biggest operation ever” in a two-minute video released on Saturday, in the aftermath of the Friday night attacks in Paris that left 129 people dead, and more than twice as many injured.
“The Anonymous hackers threatened in new video release that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic State (idiots),” ISIS said in a statement via the encrypted messaging app Telegram, reportsNewsweek. “What [are] they gonna hack... all they can do is hacking twitter accounts, emails, etc…”
The communiqué has been confirmed by the SITE Intelligence Group.
ISIS issued guidelines on how to avoid getting their accounts hacked by Anonymous, despite their dismissal of the group.
“Do not talk to to [sic] people u don’t know on telegram and block them if u have to cause there are many glitches in telegram and they can hack you by it,” the statement warns. “Don’t talk to people on twitter DM cause they can hack u too.”
The Independent reports that Anonymous has already begun putting together lists of Twitter accounts and websites allegedly associated with ISIS as part of #OpISIS or #OperationISIS. They may have included the physical address of an alleged European ISIS member on the list, according to the Independent.
Anonymous regularly launches cyber-attack campaigns against hate groups, most notably the Westboro Baptist Church and the Ku Klux Klan in the United States. But their efforts are sometimes criticized as ineffective, pointless, or flat out wrong.
The group's KKK data dump on Nov. 5 outed many figures whose affiliations with the hate group were publicly known. Additionally, a little over a week after unarmed teenager Michael Brown was killed by Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson, who had yet to be identified, Anonymous incorrectly identified and released private information about Bryan Willman as the shooter. At the time of the shooting, Willman was not an employee of either the Ferguson or St. Louis police departments.
