Anonymous took down Colombia’s Senate website and leaked legislators’ e-mails

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentine newspaper Infobae says that on Tuesday, May 4th, the hacker group Anonymous, known worldwide for cyberactivism and supporting the different mobilizations of citizens against governments worldwide, turned their focus on Colombia and released a list with emails and passwords of members of the National Army. Through the Anonymous Colombia Twitter account, they shared a list of 168 different accounts of members of the Armed Forces with their respective emails and passwords.

A few hours after this first attack, Anonymous claimed responsibility for the crash of the Senate of the Republic’s website and also released legislators’ emails along with a message that quotes Uruguayan author, Eduardo Galeano:

“Officials do not work. Politicians talk but do not say. Voters vote, but do not choose. The media misinform. The schools teach to ignore. Judges convict the victims. The military are at war against their compatriots. The police do not fight crimes, because they are busy committing them. Bankruptcies are socialized, profits are privatized. Money is freer than people. People are at the service of things,” reads the post alongside the emails.

Likewise, the hacker group announced that it had hacked the website of the Presidency of the Republic and invited users with knowledge in technology to join the attack.

Anonymous assured through several posts that the Army is creating a smokescreen. “Creating panic by spreading fear that the guerrilla kills, when they are the very same military killing and massacring their people,” they said.

So far, neither the Army, the Senate nor the Presidency has made a statement on these cyber-attacks and it is unknown if there is any kind of data breach because of the disclosure.

In addition, this group leaked a conversation in which Colombian Army General Eduardo Enrique Zapateiro is heard on May 2nd in Cali, assuring that they had received an order from President Iván Duque to militarize the city and take action against protesters.

Anonymous mentioned that they would sabotage “any trend that has no relevance or that tries to divert attention from the systematic violation of human rights that is taking place today in Colombia.” They even asked President Iván Duque to make a statement or “they will continue their work.”

This group has the slogan “We are legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget, expect us. Anonymous,” and they never show their faces, always wearing the mask of the revolutionary anarchist from V for Vendetta, the graphic novel by Alan Moore, which inspired the movie starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving in 2006.

What little is known is that it is a collective group of hackers who are completely anonymous and have no leader. There is not much information about this group of cyberactivists, according to Clarín newspaper.

After 7 days of social protests in Colombia, the United Nations Organization (UN) condemned the “excessive use of force” against demonstrators in Colombia, who took to the streets of several of the country’s cities to protest against the tax reform and the government of Iván Duque.

So far, in the framework of the national strike, at least 19 deaths have been registered, for which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ spokesperson Marta Hurtado sent an alert call from Geneva, Switzerland, in which she urged calm for the upcoming demonstrations to be held on Wednesday, May 5, in Colombia.

Source: infobae