Anonymous Targets Head Of US Federal Reserve Bernanke

The hacktivist group Anonymous has identified the US Federal Reserve as a target after calling for the resignation of its chairman Ben Bernanke, blaming him for the world’s financial woe.

The announcement was made in this YouTube video, in which the hacker group called on chairman Ben Bernanke to resign. The Anonymous beef with the Federal Reserve seems to be down to a number of reasons. Firstly Anonymous took issue with the policies of the Federal Reserve, including it giving trillions of US taxpayer dollars to “those responsible  for the current economic crisis” (i.e. worldwide banks).

Crimes Against Humanity

“The Federal Reserves’ policies are systematically looting the country to enrich one 10th of 1 percent of the population,” a distorted voice said on the video.

It also said the Federal Reserve was guilty of crimes against humanity, and has deliberately impoverished people around the world.

“Democrats have failed us, Republicans have failed us, no one is defending our interests,” says the distorted voice. “We cannot remain passive while our future is going up in flames.”

It said it would launch Operation “Empire State Rebellion”, commencing on 14 June. The first step of the operation is public protests, where people are urged to occupy a public space until the Fed chairman Bernanke (pictured) resigns.

However it also seems very likely that Anonymous will launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack designed to shut down the agency’s website.

The possible DDoS attack comes soon after it was revealed that the International Monetary Fund had been subjected to a serious and protracted attack that took place over several months. Many security experts speculated that those attackers may have had some support from a nation-state.

Spain And Turkey Arrests

Anonymous was also responsible for the attack on the website of the Spanish police force, which was knocked offline over the weekend, following the arrest of three alleged members of the group last Friday.

Spanish authorities believed the trio arrested took part in a number of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against a Sony PlayStation store and government websites in Algeria, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Iran, Libya and New Zealand

And in Turkey thirty-two people were arrested on suspicion of involvement with Anonymous, following an online protest against that country’s proposal for Internet filters. DDos attacks were launched against Turkish government websites in response.

However, doubts have been raised over whether those arrested have any great involvement in Anonymous. It appears that the Spanish suspects may be simply users of the LOIC tool, which Anonymous recommends for distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, and they did not cover their tracks sufficiently.

In January the British police arrested five Anonymous suspects, having investigated the group for some time. Meanwhile the FBI has issued forty arrest warrants.

Anonymous has previously taken credit for taking down the websites of Mastercard and Visa in December in revenge for the payment processors’ decision to suspend use of their networks by WikiLeaks.