Islamic State down: Anonymous drops social media bomb on ISIS

The hacker collective known as Anonymous first declared war on Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS) supporters back in the Summer of 2014 with Operation NO2ISIS which promised to target the online infrastructure of those countries sponsoring Islamic State militants. This declaration followed the hacking of an Anonymous Twitter account, @TheAnonMessage, which was then used to post photos of a terrorist assault near Baghdad. At the time, an Anonymous spokesperson stated that "these savages who have no religion or morality are bent on burning everything in their path, killing and pillaging as they go. They must be stopped." Because Islamic State itself had a pretty limited online footprint, at least in terms of infrastructure that might be vulnerable to a hack-based attack, the decision was taken to target the people and countries which supported them instead. Now things are different, with the terrorist group using social media to promote itself and to distribute videos showing executions of hostages.