“Sabu” the leader apparent of notorious hackers, Lulzsec, has been working for the FBI since mid 2011, it has emerged.
 Anonymous hackers in full gear. |
The information fed by 28-year old ‘Sabu’ whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, has led to the arrest of five accused Anonymous hackers in total this week.
Among the arrests are two Britons, Ryan Ackroyd, aka ‘lol’, and Jake Davis, aka “topiary” , along with Irish youths Darren Martyn, or “pwnsauce,” and Donnacha O’Cearrbhail aka “palladium,” this week.
Jermyn Hammond, aka “Anarchaos,” was also arrested in Chicago as part of the FBI swoop. All are charged with one or more counts of computer hacking conspiracy and could face between 5-10 years in prison.
The 28 year old Monsegur identified himself as a member of Anonymous, internet Feds, and LulzSec, and pled guilty to charges on August 15, 2011 in U.S, the Federal Bureau confirmed yesterday.
Sabu has been charged with 12 criminal counts of conspiracy to engage in computer hacking and other offenses initially filed in the Southern District of New York and could be in line for a prison sentence of over 124 years if US authorities have its way.
He provided a computer owned by an FBI to facilitate the release of 5 million emails taken from US security consultancy Stratfor, which is now being published by WikiLeaks, according to The Guardian, and also lifted private details on over 70,000 potential X Factor contestants in the US.
And now it seems Monsegur did more than plead guilty – he was cooperating with the Bureau and snitched on several of his co-hackers and was “acting under the direction of the FBI” to perform other hacking “leaks”, according to court documents.
 Pictured: Sabu |
The father of two “leaked” a top secret conference call between the Bureau and Serious and Organised Crime Agency in Britain.
It is not yet clear why Sabu was instructed to perform such a potentially damaging security breach but it may have been for the FBI to spy on online hacking asociates.
The revelation was uncovered by Fox News on Tuesday, whose Rupert Murdoch’s owned Fox Broadcasting Company, was one of the victims of Lulzsec hacktivism, as was Sony, and the Irish Guards.
The Porto Rican native pleaded guilty to all counts last August, after Lulzsec, which stands for Lulz Security and is a spin off of Anonymous hacking group, engaged in a series of high profile corporate attacks last year.
Sabu, however, is still active on Twitter and maintains his anti establishment image denying online he ratted out co-hackers to the authorities.
“The federal government is run by a bunch of f***** cowards. Don’t give in to these people. Fight back. Stay strong,” he tweeted under the name ‘The Real Sabu’ yesterday.
The FBI said the latest arrests “is devastating to the organisation. We’re chopping off the head of LulzSec.”
“Monsegur and other members of Anonymous took responsibility for a number of cyber attacks between December 2010 and June 2011, including denial of service (“DoS”) attacks against the websites of Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal, as retaliation for the refusal of these companies to process donations to Wikileaks, as well as hacks or DoS attacks on foreign government computer systems,” FBI confirmed in a statement.
“Five computer hackers in the United States and abroad were charged today, and a sixth pled guilty, for computer hacking and other crimes. The six hackers identified themselves as aligned with the group Anonymous, which is a loose confederation of computer hackers and others, and/or offshoot groups related to Anonymous, including “Internet Feds,” “LulzSec,” and “AntiSec.”
However, Anonymous, is denying this spells the end for its organisation:
“Anonymous is a hydra, cut off one head and we grow two back,” hacking associates declared via Twitter.
“Cut the cord and decentralize. Don’t lock in, lock them out,” another wrote which was retweeted by Sabu himself.
