Man Takes on 'Anonymous,' Loses

Aaron Barr, who runs the security firm HBGary Federal, claimed to have penetrated the hacking group Anonymous and discovered its members' identities. He even got a story placed in the Financial Times, which earned him contacts from the FBI and other government agencies. Can you see where this is going? First, Anonymous retaliated with a denial of service attack on his corporate network. Barr said he was going to "take the gloves off." The next day, Anonymous had hacked into HBGary Federal's website, and replaced it with the message "Now the Anonymous hand is bitch-slapping you in the face." Anonymous also stole all of emails off Barr's company server, deleted 1TB of backup data, and possibly even wiped his iPad remotely. At one point, the president of HBGary Federal's parent company even went into an Anonymous chat room to beg the hackers to leave them one.