Anonymous..

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if no 1 Knew of US before..How will they find Us now..lmfao.

 

TORONTO -- You can bet Toronto city officials are "scrambling" to secure their website following the threat of a cyber attack from a hacker group affiliated with Occupy Toronto, an IT expert says.

A group claiming to be the Anonymous hacker collective posted a video on YouTube Saturday, stating it would "remove" the city's website from the Internet should Mayor Rob Ford evict the 500-or-so Occupy Toronto demonstrators who have camped out in St. James Park since mid-October.

Anonymous earned infamy earlier this year after reportedly disrupting the websites of MasterCard, Visa and PayPal.

"There are a lot of sites that are not as secure as they could be against these kinds of attacks," said Andrew Clement of the University of Toronto's faculty of information. He said municipal government websites are rarely targeted and, as a result, are typically not as secure as those utilized by large corporations.

"But when a threat emerges, then they take measures," Clement said. "My guess is they'll be scrambling to protect the site after this."

The Anonymous video features a graphic of a white business suit with a question mark where the head should be, imposed on a black backdrop.

"It seems next week authorities want to put an end to the Occupy movement in Toronto," says a computerized voice. "We say, by next week if you don't change your mind, you shall be removed from the Internet. We have already planned for this."

Ford said recently he wants the Occupy Toronto demonstrators in St. James Park to move on.

Encampments have recently been dismantled in Halifax, N.S., and London, Ont.

If Anonymous has a "high level of expertise," Clement said the hackers could launch several kinds of attacks.

He described one as a "denial of service" attack, in which they would "launch a series of messages to the site," rendering it inaccessible. In another scenario, hackers could break through the site's password protection and delete files.

 

A Toronto Police officer said Internet-based threats are not uncommon.

"It's problematic responding to that kind of thing posted in cyberspace," said Staff-Sgt. Peter Callaghan. "It's not like we're responding to a known organization ... If there is a real threat, we'll deal with it."

terry.davidson@sunmedi

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