On Ars Technica, Sean Gallagher delves into the Anonymosus-OS, an Ubuntu Linux derivative I wrote about yesterday that billed itself as an OS for Anonymous, with a number of security/hacking tools pre-installed. Sean’s conclusions is that, contrary to rumor, there’s not any malware visible in the package, but there’s plenty of dubious “security” tools like the Low Orbit Ion Cannon: “I don’t know how much more booby-trapped a tool can get than pointing authorities right back at your IP address as LOIC does without being modified.”
As far as I can tell, Sean hasn’t compared the package checksums for Anonymosus-OS, which would be an important and easy (though tedious) step for anyone who was worried about the OS hiding malware to take.
Update: Sean’s done the checksum comparison and found 143 files that don’t match up with the published versions.
Some of the tools are of questionable value, and the attack tools might well be booby-trapped in some way. But I don’t know how much more booby-trapped a tool can get than pointing authorities right back at your IP address as LOIC does without being modified.
Most of the stuff in the “Anonymous” menu here is widely available as open source or as Web-based tools—in fact, a number of the tools are just links to websites, such as the MD5 hash cracker MD5Crack Web. But it’s clear there are a number of tools here that are in daily use by AnonOps and others, including the encryption tool they’ve taken to using for passing target information back and forth.
Lame hacker tool or trojan delivery device? Hands on with Anonymous-OS