With more industrial systems becoming connected to the internet, hacker groups are increasingly interested in penetrating these networks for breaches and inspection. Many state-sponsored groups such as Electrum (also known as Sandworm) and Covellite have emerged to do just this; two notable examples being linked with North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

Others known for their hacker activities include LulzSec and Bureau 121 – two groups notorious for attacking PlayStation and Microsoft services for “lulz.” LulzSec took pleasure in hacking PlayStation and Microsoft services just for laughs while Bureau 121 targeted South Korean broadcasting companies.

Anonymous

Though some may see hacktivists as just another group of mischievous troublemakers online, Anonymous has performed plenty of beneficial acts. Their members have responded to kiddie porn sites by blocking them; identified Chinese military cyber attacks against U.S. targets; and even disabled the digital properties belonging to hate groups like Westboro Baptist Church.

After WikiLeaks exposed government corruption and other issues that sparked protests in Tunisia, Anonymous gained enormous notoriety through DDoS attacks against eight Tunisian government websites in solidarity with protesting citizens of that country. Later, Anonymous breached security services firm websites to post archives of executive emails for sale on file-trading networks; this action gained them much notoriety before leading them to release personal information of millions of X Factor contestants and tweets/emails of high school students involved in Steubenville Rape case case as a further publicity stunt.

As part of its post-Arab Spring campaign against corruption in Egypt and Tunisia, this collective launched an anti-corruption drive. By 2022, they declared cyber war against Russia’s Vladimir Putin and took down various government websites including Russian Ministry of Defense sites; at this same time they released over one gigabyte of classified NATO information as well as altered data from Vesseltracker navigation tracking system to show an itinerary that read “to hell”.

Lazarus Group

The Lazarus Group is one of the best-known hacking collectives of recent history, having emerged in North Korea and becoming active since 2009. They’re responsible for several high-profile attacks such as 2014 Sony Pictures hack and 2021 Bangladesh Central Bank Heist, among others.

The group is able to execute these attacks thanks to its arsenal of tools and techniques; using spear phishing, waterhole attacks, supply chain hacks and zero-day vulnerability exploitation among others in their arsenal to gain entry to networks and exfiltrate data from them.

Lazarus targets typically fall within either political or financial areas, such as government agencies, defense units, financial institutions, and industrial conglomerates. Starting in the mid-2020s, Lazarus began targeting biotech companies and universities engaged in Covid-19 research as well.

The group has also targeted cryptocurrency users in various ways. In 2022, for instance, they attacked crypto exchanges using double software supply chain exploits involving Log4j vulnerabilities to launch Operation AppleJeus. Researchers observed disruptions similar to 2017’s WannaCry ransomware outbreak. Furthermore, in May 2022 they successfully compromised an email wallet provider leading to nearly $100 million being taken from affected victims via its hack.

Tailored Access Operations (TAO)

Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the National Security Agency’s top hacking team, is an impressive entity. Comprised of some of America’s finest hackers, TAO boasts of 85,000 global network penetrations since it began operations. Their elite hackers possess formidable skills that allow for aggressive penetration attacks; evidenced by giving tools illustrious names like “ANGRY NEIGHBOR”, “HOWLERMONKEY”, and “WATERWITCH”.

TAO operatives use their impressive hacking skills to infiltrate hardware before it leaves its manufacturing plant, gain access to telecom equipment that forms the backbone of the Internet, intercept mobile phones or tablet computers and install monitoring capabilities into them, conduct social engineering against supposedly foreign entities, as well as engage in social engineering or espionage against supposed foreign entities. According to documents released by Edward Snowden, TAO hacks software and hardware before reaching public hands; for example credit card skimming attacks.

TAO is an integral part of the National Security Agency’s Signals Intelligence Directorate and offers remarkable detail about how to spy on systems, including man-in-the-middle attacks and monitoring encrypted communications. It provides insight that attackers outside of NSA can quickly adapt these techniques for greater effectiveness while potentially speeding up attack timeframes.

The Dark Overlord

The Dark Overlord was notorious for hacking into corporate networks to steal sensitive data such as patient medical records and personal identifying information, then demanding ransom payments made in bitcoin before releasing their stolen files – tactics adopted widely by other cybercriminals.

Last year, this group rose to fame after hacking Netflix and leaking new Orange Is the New Black episodes onto torrents – forcing post-production companies to pay ransom to keep these episodes from becoming public domain.

Recently, The Dark Overlord ventured beyond their usual hacking and extortion scheme and initiated terror-based attacks against school districts and students, sending life-threatening text messages that resulted in school closure for an entire week. As a result of these incidents, both Sen. Steve Daines and FBI are investigating; Sen. Daines raised serious concerns regarding The Dark Overlord’s actions.

The Dark Overlord is one of the most advanced hacker groups when it comes to manipulating media coverage, including threats and manipulation. Unfortunately, its number of members remains unknown and detection can only occur through victim tip-offs such as Nathan Wyatt’s tip offs. Yet they remain active, recently publishing an alleged student directory from Johnston Community School District on Pastebin as well as claiming to have breached law firms associated with Hiscox Insurance that may contain 9/11 litigation files and hacking their law firm in order to gain entry.

The Equation Group

Kaspersky Lab announced in 2015 the existence of The Equation Group, an active threat actor since 2001 that had infiltrated several hundred systems across 42 countries using malware known as The Equation Group Trojan Horse, targeting everything from private businesses and energy departments to military operations and media outlets.

Malware penetrates a computer’s firmware – the software that loads before an operating system begins loading – to enable its creators to remotely execute commands, gather information and even take over an entire system completely. Once activated, spyware deletes itself once its target becomes irrelevant or uninteresting to its attacker.

What makes the Equation Group particularly concerning is its apparent connection to the National Security Agency’s arsenal. According to reports by Reuters, two former government sources have verified that its deep firmware hacking services form part of their toolbox.

Kaspersky Lab has been quietly investigating a selection of The Equation Group’s 300 C&C servers as they use them as Command and Control servers (C&Cs), believing they were intended as honeypots and that their existence is evidenced by this research conducted by Kaspersky. Furthermore, this has revealed the cyberweapons used against U.S. interests by Kaspersky against The Equation Group as having been exposed by Kaspersky research.

Syrian Electronic Army

SEA has been attacking computers and websites since the start of uprisings began in Syria in 2011. Although it claims to represent their regime, researchers haven’t been able to prove its presence within it. While its initial attacks involved defacing websites, its attacks now span Facebook pages and high-profile Twitter accounts – even one tweet which sent stocks tumbling claiming responsibility from it: “Breaking: Two explosions at White House with Obama injured.”

Researchers claim that hackers working for the Syrian Electronic Army also share information with pro-regime activists, according to researchers. Motherboard’s source Th3 Pr0 provided us with screenshots and documents that suggest he and Louay Almokdad, another victim of the SEA, attempted to organize equipment shipments to Syrian rebels from America via Louay Almokdad; this would allow Syrian government agents to intercept these deliveries or at least know what was inside.

The Southeast Asia Alliance (SEA) hopes that its hacks will encourage other hackers and internet users to stop labeling its members as extremists, and instead take more seriously their activities. In contrast to Anonymous, which lacks a firm structure or core group leadership, the SEA appears organized with clear leadership, suggesting they take their activities seriously.

Morpho

Morpho is a cyberespionage group that specifically targets businesses. The information they gather often plays a pivotal role in operations and contracts. Morpho uses watering hole attacks and zero-day exploits to gain entry to company systems; once inside they can use confidential information obtained to preempt important decisions or investment announcements – recently this type of activity has involved professional baseball teams.

Blue Morpho, Jonas Venture Sr.’s former lackey turned rogue in A Party for Tarzan, was used to perform covert operations by Team Venture and even impersonated tennis legend Billie Jean King in order to save Rusty from an airplane crash; he even saved Jonas Venture Jr’s son Rusty from one. Unfortunately, when Jonas realized he was using him his relationship soured considerably before being revived as Venturion with Vendata programming; when this position came under abuse when trying to strangle Rusty while mistaking him for his son who had fallen under his influence and programming; eventually being revived as Venturion as Vendata when it later tried strangling Rusty mistaking Rusty for Jonas himself and killing both.

Henchman 21 shows a video clip in Rapacity in Blue of Blue Morpho discussing his new project with Jonas Venture Sr. This suggests that public opinion views him as an unpredictable vigilante; yet, Henchman 21 jokes with Monarch that this perception is inaccurate.

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