Anonymous and LulzSec hacktivists join forces

Hacking group Anonymous has today claimed that it is affiliated with the short-lived LulzSec movement, as it leaked sensitive documents including details about Zimbabwean government officials.

LulzSec had claimed that it would disband after a 50-day hacking campaign, but that appears to be void as Anonymous has taken to Twitter to announce that the groups have merged.

"We'd like to clarify again: All LulzSec members are accounted for, nobody is hiding. Only the name was abandoned for the greater glory #AntiSec," Anonymous tweeted.

"Yes, my fellows. We may be not quite as funny, but we can assure you: We sail in the same spirit. LulzSec = Anonymous. Who did NOT now? [sic]."

Capping off a busy day, Anonymous made a number of confidential files available to download. One file purports to have "everything about the Zimbabwe Government [on] the internet there is to know". This file contains information such as email addresses.

The group also released what it said was government server data from Anguilla, and the password files from various Brazilian government servers. More leaks have been promised in the coming days.

The Mastercard web site has also been sporadically under attack throughout the day, in a repeat of the attacks in December.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, warned that the continual distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks provide a stark warning about the security dangers of the internet.

"Companies and computer users mustn't sit back and laugh along, thinking that these attacks won't affect them," he said.

"Businesses need to be sure of the quality of their security systems, and all of us who entrust our sensitive information to third parties should be aware that the problem could affect us too."

The claimed merger between Anonymous and LulzSec comes on the same day that Ryan Cleary, a 19 year-old accused of being affiliated with the LulzSec movement, was granted bail in London. 

It appears that Anonymous could do with the extra manpower after three members were arrested in Spain and a further 32 members were held by Turkish police earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Sony chief executive Howard Stringer told shareholders that the firm was targeted by hackers because it was trying to clamp down on users modifying consoles.

"We believe that we first became the subject of attack because we tried to protect our intellectual property, our content, in this case video games," Reuters reported Stringer as saying during a shareholder meeting on Tuesday.

Sony blamed Anonymous for launching a DDoS attack in which credit card information on over 75 million users was stolen.