Anonymous 'Op Isis': Isis supporters hit back by publishing set of anti-hack guidelines
Isis calls hacking group 'idiots' but urges its followers to take precaution in their online activity
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Apparent Isis supporters have responded to hacking group Anonymous’s threats by publishing a series of basic guidelines to prevent their followers‘ Twitter accounts from being hacked.
The pro-Isis accounts hit back at Anonymous's efforts to name and shame and take down Isis-linked Twitter accounts by calling them "idiots" and urging extremists to follow precaution measures.
The message was sent from the Khilafah News channel and states: "The #Anonymous hackers threatened in new video release that they will carry out a major hack operation on the Islamic state (idiots)."
The online safety guidelines were released in a messaging app called Telegram, which encrypts messages and can destruct them after a certain amount of time.
The five steps instructions are aimed to counter the Anonymous collective’s "biggest ever operation" after it "declared war" on Isis in a video in the wake of the Paris attacks.
It reads (sic):
Do not open any kind of link unless u r sure from the source
Use vpn and change ur IP constantly for security reasons. Phones and computers.
Do not talk to people u don’t know on Telegram and block them if u have to cause they are many glitches in Telegram and they can hack you by it.
Don’t talk to people on Twitter DM cause they can hack u too.
Do not make your #email same as your #username on twitter this mistake cost many Ansar they account and the kuffar published their IP so be careful.
The message was intercepted by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation in London.
Nick Kaderbhai, a research fellow at the institute told the Huffington Post UK, anyone could subscribe to the Khilafah News channel but “the more IS channels you subscribe to the more open you are to investigation".
The instructions come after the Anonymous group claims to have taken down 800 social media accounts linked to Isis members and has been spamming extremists with memes.
Among the group’s strategies is finding out hashtags that are used by Isis and potential recruits and spamming them, so that they become unusable and extremists find it harder to communicate.
Since January and the shootout at the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which killed 17 people, the hacktivists claim to have closed down 149 websites, 101,000 Twitter accounts and 5,900 propaganda videos, according to an investigation by Foreign Policy.
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