Hacker Group “Anonymous” Makes Threats to Attack World Cup Sponsors

Few weeks to the World Cup, and all sort of things are popping up. First it was A Witch Doctor from Ghana, now a the famous Hackers "Anonymous" have their own say....

The famous hacker group called Anonymous is planning a cyberattack on the corporate sponsors of the World Cup in Brazil. Their reason? To protest against the extravagant spending on soccer games in a country struggling to provide basic services.

Anonymous attacked the computer networks of Brazil’s foreign ministry earlier this week, leaking dozens of confidential e-mails.

“We have already conducted late-night tests to see which of the sites are more vulnerable,” said the hacker operating under the alias of Che Commodore. “We have a plan of attack.”

“This time we are targeting the sponsors of the World Cup,” he said in a Skype conversation from an undisclosed location in Brazil. Asked to name the potential targets he mentioned Adidas, Emirates, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch.

Up until now, there is no way to confirm Che Commodore’s identity or his affiliation with the group Anonymous and the sponsors are yet to respond to the threat.

The foreign ministry immediately closed down its e-mail system following the attack, instructing its 3,000 e-mail account holders to change their passwords. Federal police are presently investigating the hack.

A foreign ministry official has revealed that only 55 e-mail accounts were leaked and the only documents obtained were attached to e-mails and they were from the ministry’s internal document archive.

“The problem has been resolved. Nothing important was leaked,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to discuss the matter.

However, Brazilian diplomats abroad are left without e-mail communications with their headquarters for several days.