The hacktivist collective calling itself Team Poison (TeaMp0isoN) unleashed an automated 24-hour "phone bomb" assault against MI6, the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service, and then called the agency to boast.
The barrage of phone calls tied up MI6's phone lines, effectively preventing any legitimate calls from getting through. Each time an MI6 official answered the phone, a robot voice said "Team Poison," the news site Softpedia reported.
To keep from being traced, the calls were automated through a script run on a compromised server in Malaysia, Softpedia said.
Taunting authority
Following the phone bombing, Team Poison leader "TriCk" called the secret intelligence service directly to taunt it. In a YouTube video uploaded April 10, TriCk, speaking with a British accent, tells the MI6 representative, "You're being phone-bombed right now, mate."
TriCk, who said he is 16, also calls himself Robert West, and tells the two MI6 representatives on the line that he's "got some terrorism here."
When asked about Team Poison's philosophy, TriCk answers, "Knowledge is power. We embarrass governments," and he curses the police. TriCk also tells the MI6 representative that Ryan Cleary, a 19-year-old British hacker arrested last June for a string of hacks against government agencies, is his brother.
MI6 responds that the information TriCk has disclosed "is being passed to the FBI."
Watching the watchers
Team Poison posted another video to YouTube today (April 12). This video, according to the hackers, captures a conversation between MI6 and the FBI. MI6 admits in the taped call that it has received about "700 calls over the last couple nights."
In a statement posted along with this second video, TriCk said his hacking group targeted MI6 "purely because they help lock up innocent people who they themselves label as terrorists with no proof at all."
TriCk cites "Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdel Bary & a few others" and says: "The people who have been extradited have done nothing wrong to be extradited to the U.S."
Adel Abdel Bary is an Egyptian militant wanted in connection with the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in East Africa. He has been in custody in the U.K since 1999. Babar Ahmad has been in custody in the U.K, and is believed to have been involved in supporting Chechen and Afghan insurgents. On April 10, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ahmad can be extradited to the U.S.
"The US is calling it a 'global war on terror' which in my opinion is a cover up for 'global war on Islam," Team Poison wrote. "The real terrorists are the guys sitting in 10 Downing Street and the Whitehouse [sic]."
Hackers join Anonymous' anti-extradition campaign
Team Poison's involvement in anti-government campaigns coincides with the recent efforts of Anonymous, which last weekend launched a denial-of-service attack against the U.K.'s Home Office website.
That attack, part of the hackers' "Operation Trial at Home," was carried out in protest of the extradition of three suspected U.K. cybercriminals.
Yesterday Anonymous said it would launch a similar offensive Saturday (April 14) against the website of the Government Communications Headquarters, the intelligence agency that, along with MI6, protects U.K. government agencies from cyberthreats.