OurMine, the hacking group that claims to just really care about their victims’ security profiles, is back, after apparently hacking WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks’ website was defaced this morning, with the homepage at WikiLeaks.org displaying a message that indicated that its efforts in this case were not altruistic (even in a lip-service kind of way): “Hi, it’s OurMine (Security Group), don’t worry we are just testing your…. blablablab, oh wait, this is not a security test! Wikileaks, remember when you challenged us to hack you?”
According to the Verge, some visitors saw the message while others didn’t; and some got a message announcing that WikiLeaks’ account has been suspended entirely. As of this writing, the website was back in business, with its usual front-page links to Vault 7, its trove of hacking tools.
In any event, this seems to be the latest entry in the ongoing spat between OurMine and Anonymous.
OurMine has made a name for itself by breaking into bigwigs’ social media accounts, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Its efforts, it said, are meant to alert users to the security flaws in their habits and systems. It has also targeted organizations, including the New York Times and Buzzfeed, and in December of 2015 it took down WikiLeaks.
Anonymous, a longtime Julian Assange and WikiLeaks supporter, promptly doxed OurMine after that incident, claiming to publish personal info about the group. While the information was taken down, OurMine claimed that Anonymous continued to harass its members. In retaliation, in July 2016, OurMine DDoSsed WikiLeaks, successfully knocking the website offline for a few hours.
And now, this: In Thursday’s homepage message, OurMine added: “Anonymous, remember when you tried to dox us with fake information for attacking wikileaks [sic]?” the message continues. “There we go! One group beat you all! #WikileaksHack lets get it trending on twitter [sic]!”
OurMine could be ramping up activities again; earlier in August it kicked HBO while the premium network was down and reeling from its extortionist harassers, taking over the company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
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“Hi, Our?Mi?ne are here, we are just testing your security, HBO team please contact us to upgrade the security – ourmine .org -> Contact,” it posted.