Anonymous starts its attacks: don’t worry, Facebook is still there… for now

Today is the day that hacker group Anonymous will start to hack, deface and cause general mayhem on certain sites around the world. The fifth of November (Guy Fawkes day), is the day that is associated with the group and the “V for Vendetta” movie, and the day it claimed it would take down Facebook.

On Sunday, NBC’s video page was defaced and visitors were met with music and a message from Anonymous, exposing certain passwords and user information, according to gizmodo. A message on the site was posted by the group:

REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, THE GUNPOWDER TREASON AND PLOT. I KNOW OF NO REASON WHY THE GUNPOWDER TREASON SHOULD EVER BE FORGOT. REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, THE GUNPOWDER TREASON AND PLOT. I KNOW OF NO REASON WHY THE GUNPOWDER TREASON SHOULD EVER BE FORGOT. REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, THE GUNPOWDER TREASON AND PLOT. I KNOW OF NO REASON WHY THE GUNPOWDER TREASON SHOULD EVER BE FORGOT. REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, THE GUNPOWDER TREASON AND PLOT. I KNOW OF NO REASON WHY THE GUNPOWDER TREASON SHOULD EVER BE FORGOT.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv9Ai7kRAVo&w=650&h=366]

Anonymous Press tweets reveal that the main focus of these attacks are to be an anti-surveillance protest, with the aim of taking down surveillance systems such as TrapWire and INDECT. Employee account information on accounts from PayPal, Symantec and Australian government websites were also dumped according to its press arm. Various Anonymous Twitter accounts also announced the hacks, saying that this is just the beginning of defacement and document dumps. The attacks are also shared on YouTube and Facebook.

Zynga, which has been a target of Anonymous ever since the lay-off of employees, has not had any attacks yet and its site is still running.

Anonymous Australia seem to be the most active of all the groups, announcing the hacking of various Australian government sites: ImageShack, Ascension Australia, NBC.com and Lady Gaga’s fan site, Saturday Night Live’s Web site, Australian steel and mining company Arcelor Mittal, homewares website GiftNow, the Greek City website and the Ghana Consulate website.

UPDATE: According to cyberwarnews, PayPal was not a victim of the attacks. An apology was posted on its site.