Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

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The case of the anonymous attacks on scientology
in conjunction with takeovers of bank's systems to commit fraud or steal intel-
lectual property.
Disruptive DDoS attacks are becoming larger with volumetric flooding of servers 
with jumbled or incomplete data. Meaning there is an increasing need to gather and 
share intelligence and strategies amongst networks and across the financial sector in 
relation to attacks of this nature (
Ashford, 2013; Rashid, 2013
).
Whilst the context for this case study is financial—the primary motivation may 
not fall under “financial” as the Anonymous attack on HSBC demonstrates and thus 
could fall into the “moral” category. However, publicity could also motivate the at-
tacks for notorious groups. DDoS attacks are usually highly disruptive and can be 
used to mask other fraudulent activities—in these cases then “financial” would be 
the primary motivation.
THE CASE OF THE ANONYMOUS ATTACKS ON SCIENTOLOGY
Anonymous is an international network of activists who originated on an image-
based bulletin board (B) 4Chan in 2003. Over the past ten years they have become 
known for a large number of DDoS attacks on corporate, government, religious 
websites. Anonymous (
Anonymous, 2014a
) describe themselves as “a decentralized 
network of individuals focused on promoting access to information, free speech, 
and transparency” (http:
www.anonanalytics.com
). According to 
Kelly (2009)
 “even 
under the discrete umbrella of hacktivism, however, Anonymous has a distinct make-
up: a decentralized (almost non-existent) structure, unabashed moralistic/political 
motivations, and a proclivity to couple online cyberattacks with offline protests” (p. 
1668). A website associated with the group describes it as “an internet gathering” 
with “a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather 
than directives” (
http://anonnews.org/static/faq
) (
Anonymous, 2014b
).
Internet censorship and control is at the heart of the group's philosophy and 
they have orchestrated a number of well publicized stunts. This case study will 
focus on Project Chanology—a protest against the practices of the Church of 
Scientology (2008).
Project Chanology started after the Church of Scientology tried to remove a 
mock-up of an interview conducted by Tom Cruise talking about Scientology from 
Youtube. Anonymous stated that they believed that the Church of Scientology were 
committing acts of Internet Censorship and started a number of DDoS attacks which 
were followed by a series of prank calls designed to cause the Church of Scientology 
as much disruption as possible.
Following the DDOs attacks, in February 2008 people across the world who as-
sociated themselves with the Anonymous philosophy took direct action by protesting 
against the church on the streets. It is estimated that about 7,000 people protested in 
at least 100 cities worldwide—with thousands of photos of the events uploaded onto 
websites like flickr. Further protests were carried out in March and then April 2008.

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