What Is Hacktivism: Its Purposes and Methods

Hacktivism Definition and Meaning

Hacktivism is defined as the use of hacking techniques and disruptive cyber attacks to promote political or social activism. The term “hacktivism” was first coined in 1996 by a member of the hacker collective “Cult of the Dead Cow” known as “Omega”. Early hacktivists saw their computer skills as tools for civil disobedience.

Unlike malicious hackers who seek profit or espionage, hacktivist groups rally around themes like:

• Freedom of speech
• Human rights
• Opposition to censorship
• Anti-corruption
• Anti-war movements

They use cyber attacks or DoS attacks to make political statements, expose what they consider wrongdoing, or pressure entities such as governments and corporations to change policies.

While their methods overlap with cybercrime, hacktivists justify them as a form of protest that highlights important issues and challenges powerful institutions. Hacktivism attacks also involve unauthorized breaches, leading to extensive collateral damage.

How Hacktivism Works

Hacktivists operate openly and collaboratively. They often claim credit online for their attacks and publicize the results to maximize awareness and rally supporters.

Hacktivists groups are also notoriously active on social networks (Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, Matrix, Discord). These channels contain information about the group’s principles and goals, reports about attacks that have taken place, tools for carrying out attacks, and so on.

Anyone can participate by posting with unique hashtags used for specific types of attacks: #TangoDown for DDoS, #deface for Deface attacks, #leak for data leaks.

Below, we’ll dive deeper into these approaches and explore how a typical hacktivist campaign unfolds.

1. Decentralized Organization

Hacktivist groups are exceptionally resilient because of their decentralized nature. They operate without a formal hierarchy or “commander”. Many are collectives united by an idea. For example, “Anonymous” is an indefinite movement rather than a single entity.

How it works:

Hacktivist groups continue to work even after some members have left because they have a distributed nature and come under the constant rotation of members.

• Cells or sub-groups within a movement can also operate semi-independently, pursuing local objectives while still flying the same banner.
• Hacktivist campaigns can be long-running, with waves of activity flaring up as new events spark outrage.

2. Social Media Coordination

Hacktivists leverage social media to coordinate and publicize operations.

How it works:

• Hacktivists launch social media channels and websites containing information about the group’s principles and goals.
• These channels may also publish reports about attacks and tools for carrying them out.
• Their openness on social media helps campaigns gain traction quickly, where a hashtag or viral post can recruit thousands of new operatives overnight.

3. Open Recruitment and Crowdsourcing

Hacktivist initiatives are usually crowd-sourced and call on volunteers, also known as digital mobs or hacktivist swarms.

How it works:

• Anyone sympathetic to the cause can pitch in since launching a basic DDoS (or sharing a leaked file link) doesn’t require deep technical knowledge.
• Campaign organizers develop user-friendly tools or scripts to lower the barrier to entry.

4. Collective Anonymity and Mass Participation

Hacktivists act under the concept of “we are legion”, making it harder for authorities and security analysts to identify each participant among a crowd.

How it works:

• Many conceal their identities using aliases (e.g., handles like “CyberJustice” or “AnonOps124”) and use VPNs or Tor to hide their IP addresses.
• The significant damage from hacktivist attacks is due to the large number of attackers and simultaneous actions, such as coordinated DDoS attacks.
• Collective attacks also add another layer of protection, with many believing that the risk of being caught is minimal.

5. Media Leverage

Hacktivists work with an eye toward public relations; a defacement or data leak is only as valuable as the attention it gets. To gain maximum press coverage, hacktivists tip off media outlets or boast on public channels about their exploits.

How it works:

• Hacktivists package stolen data into media-friendly releases (e.g., creating a website of leaked emails to facilitate journalists).
• They try to control the narrative and ensure their message (not just the illegal act) reaches the public by courting the press and dominating social media chatter.
• This propaganda of the deed and increased public scrutiny sometimes backfire, causing security lapses and harsh retaliation from authorities.

Based on 1550+ high-tech crime investigations, our digital forensics experts have observed that leaked sensitive information or compromised channels can unmask individual members.

Explore Group-IB’s list of the “Top 10 Masked Actors for 2025” for insights into the impact of hacktivist and ransomware operations across sectors and geographies.

A Brief History of Hacktivism

The roots of hacktivism trace back to the late 20th century, with peaks corresponding to political events and technological changes. Key milestones in hacktivism’s history include:

1989 – The WANK Worm

A simple worm with a silly name in 1989 started hacktivism as we know it today. The “Worms Against Nuclear Killers (WANK)” computer worm infiltrated NASA and the United States Department of Energy networks in October 1989, displaying an anti-nuclear message (“WANK”) on infected terminals.

The malicious program gained privileged access to networks and deleted user files. Interestingly, the incident was a scam. The malware did not damage any files; any wiped computer was its user’s fault.

1990s – “Web Sit-Ins” and Hacktivism

Throughout the mid-90s, the “Cult of the Dead Cow” and its offshoots (like Hacktivismo) advocated for information freedom. In 1998, a group called the “Electronic Disturbance Theater” staged virtual sit-ins by directing web traffic to overload servers of the Mexican government.

2008 – Project Chanology

This was an important campaign by the nascent collective “Anonymous” against the Church of Scientology.

Triggered by the Church’s attempt to censor online content, Anonymous members coordinated DDoS attacks on Scientology websites, prank-called its offices, and flooded it with black faxes, alongside in-person street protests by supporters in Guy Fawkes masks.

2010 – Operation Payback

In late 2010, when financial companies like PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard cut off services to WikiLeaks, Anonymous retaliated with a series of large DDoS attacks dubbed “Operation Payback.”

Hacktivists temporarily shut down the websites of those companies to protest what they saw as censorship. Earlier in 2010, Operation Payback had begun as attacks on anti-piracy organizations, but it morphed into a pro-WikiLeaks campaign (also called Operation Avenge Assange) after the WikiLeaks banking blockade.

Mid-2010s – Crackdowns

Law enforcement arrested several prominent Anonymous and LulzSec members around 2012–2013, which sowed mistrust and quieted some operations.

2024 – Political Hacktivism

Most hacktivist groups today operate with a political agenda, showing a trend for targeting government agencies and financial institutions. According to Group-IB’s High-Tech Crime Trends 2025 report, over 300 hacktivist groups are active worldwide, with countries like India, Israel, and Russia becoming the top targets of hacktivist attacks due to their roles in geopolitical disputes.

Anonymous

Anonymous groups are decentralized, ideological, unpredictable, and capable of attacks ranging from pranks to serious breaches. Their use of social media and dramatic video press releases set the template for modern hacktivist communications.

While its activity has fluctuated over time, subgroups of Anonymous remain active as of 2025, and their name continues to surface in connection with hacktivism. Anonymous recruits use a different set of hashtags depending on the campaign.

Types of Hacktivism: Attack Methods

Common attack methods include DDoS attacks to render resources inaccessible, defacing websites to promote the group’s ideas or positions, and publishing compromised data.

Hacktivists also communicate through encrypted channels and share open-source digital tools or guides so that others can join the cyber campaign. The main goal is to inflict reputational damage on opponents or disable their resources.

We’ll explore the significant types of hacktivism and attack methods in more detail below.

1. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)

Overwhelming a target website or service with traffic from many sources, forcing it offline.

Hacktivist DDoS campaigns (often announced with the hashtag #TangoDown), have been among the most frequent and impactful, as even relatively unskilled volunteers can join in flooding a site.

2. Website Defacement

Attackers replace the homepage of a website with messages, slogans, or graphics to broadcast their cause.

These website defacement attacks include political statements or propaganda, alerting visitors that the site has been hacked, spreading the hacktivists’ message to a wide audience, and publicly humiliating the target.

In 2024, a hacktivist group known as “Stucx Team” defaced the homepages of several French websites three days after the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov.

3. Data Theft and InformationLeaks

Hacking into systems to steal confidential information, which is then published openly (on leak websites, Pastebin, Telegram, etc.) to damage reputation or expose wrongdoing.

Data leak operations aim to reveal internal email addresses, customer records, or classified documents that can scandalize the target organization. Whistleblowers might also leak data aligned with hacktivist goals, as seen in 2010 when U.S. diplomatic cables were passed to WikiLeaks and published by Julian Assange.

4. Doxing

Publishing private or identifying information about individuals involved with the target (such as personal addresses, emails, or documents) as a form of public shaming or intimidation.

Hacktivists may dox officials, police, executives, or other figures they oppose, claiming it as a way to hold them accountable. This attack method blurs the line between whistle blowing and harassment and is illegal.

5. URL/Traffic Hijacking

Manipulating internet traffic or DNS settings to redirect users from a legitimate site to another page that delivers the hacktivist’s message.

Hacktivists can hijack a company’s subdomain and redirect users to a page with protest content, or poison DNS entries so that a government website loads a parody page.

6. Anonymous Blogging and Information Distribution

Using anonymous content, paste sites, or social media accounts to spread propaganda, leaked information, or calls to action.

Website mirroring is a related tactic where online activists create copies of censored sites or pay-walled content to ensure it remains accessible. A case in point is the RECAP browser extension, designed to automatically copy U.S. federal court documents from PACER and repost them for free online.

Motivations Behind Hacktivism

Hacktivism is politically or socially motivated hacking. It’s driven by outrage, idealism, or a desire to raise awareness. As Group-IB researchers have noted, hacktivist causes can range from fighting terrorism and bypassing censorship to promoting democracy and undermining authoritarianism.

Here are some common motivations that explain why hacktivists attack:

1. Political Protest and Dissent

Many hacktivist attacks are cyber-protests against government actions, laws, or policies.

This includes:

• Speaking out against wars, government corruption, authoritarian regimes, or controversial legislation.
• Opposing sides of a political conflict hack websites to spread propaganda or protest military actions.

2. Freedom of Information and Anti-Censorship

Many hacktivists are motivated by free speech and open access to personal information.

This includes:

• Exposing secrets or removing barriers to information through attacks on government infrastructure.
• Leaks like the Hacking Team files (to expose surveillance activities) are embodied by groups like WikiLeaks and Anonymous.
• Mirror sites and tools to bypass the “Great Firewall,” championing uncensored internet access as a human right.

3. Human Rights and Social Justice

Hacktivists often rally behind human rights causes, political causes, a form of civil disobedience, and social movements as a form of vigilante justice against hate and terror. Some hacktivists have even pursued goals like disrupting terrorists’ online presence or aiding migrants.

This includes targeting entities accused of human rights abuses, assisting refugees by hacking and exposing human trafficking rings, and helping political dissidents in oppressive countries communicate securely.

4. Anti-Corporate Activism

Hacktivism can also be directed at corporations, especially those perceived as unethical.

This includes:

• Punishing companies involved in scandals, such as leaking data from a company engaged in environmental destruction, or defacing a brand’s website over labor abuses.
• The Ashley Madison breach, where hackers exposed a dating site’s user base, was justified by the perpetrators as condemning the company’s immoral business.
• Attacks on financial institutions as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, or operations against pharma companies and others accused of harmful practices.

Hacktivist also create unintended yet serious consequences for ordinary users. Disrupting critical services, such as healthcare portals, financial services, or government websites, can prevent people from accessing urgent medical records, online banking, or public resources.

Likewise, data leaks intended to expose wrongdoing can compromise the privacy and safety of innocent individuals.

Tactics and Tools of Hacktivists

Hacktivists often use free and publicly available tools included in the most common distributions for penetration testing and exploiting vulnerabilities in legacy services.  Some groups develop proprietary software or create repositories of scripts and tools for other hacktivists, lowering the technical barrier and encouraging large-scale participation.

We’ll explore these tactics and tools in more detail below.

1. Publicly Available Tools

Hacktivists use open-source or freeware programs that anyone can download.

Examples of some high profile attacks:

• The Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) was originally a stress-testing tool that Anonymous repurposed for DDoS – Denial-of-Service attacks. Similar tools exist for computer network flooding, vulnerability scanning, and password cracking, requiring minimal technical expertise.
• Other open-source utilities include dirsearch (for discovering hidden files and directories), sqlmap (for automating SQL injection attacks), redis-rogue-getshell (for exploiting Redis servers), and Cobalt Strike (for post-exploitation activities).
• Hacktivists also favor penetration-testing distributions, like Kali Linux, loaded with exploit tools.

2. Exploiting Known Vulnerabilities

Hacktivists prefer to exploit legacy or well-known security gaps in websites and systems rather than developing custom malware or leveraging zero-day exploits.

Examples:

• If a website runs an outdated CMS, a hacktivist can use a known exploit (copy-pasted from forums or GitHub) to deface the site or steal data.
• SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks are used to dump databases or alter web content. Organizations with poor patch management often become low-hanging fruit.
• Group-IB’s investigation into “GambleForce” exposed a series of coordinated attacks using publicly available penetration testing tools to identify SQL injection vulnerabilities in web applications. The group exploited CVE-2023-23752, a flaw in Joomla CMS, to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data from 20 websites.

3. Botnets

To conduct larger DDoS attacks, hacktivists deploy botnets. They may call on volunteers to contribute their devices, which is easier and cheaper than building a typical malware botnet.

Examples:

• Participants can run a code or join a DDoS coordination platform that turns their device into one of many hitting the target.
• Other hacktivist groups have created scripts that repeatedly reload target URLs or send junk requests, which were later shared on Telegram for supporters to run.

4. Script Repositories

Experienced hacktivists may prepare tutorials, toolkits, and scripts for recruits.

Examples:

• They maintain GitHub repositories with custom scripts to automate specific attacks, or write how-to guides (“paste this command to join the attack”).
• Some hacktivist campaigns include web-based attack panels where a user clicks a button to launch an attack on listed targets directly.
• Downloadable “IP stressor” tools configured with targets, so anyone could run them to initiate attacks with limited technical knowledge.

5. Anonymity Tools

Hacktivists rely on privacy tools like VPN services, proxy chains, and the Tor network to protect from identity theft and mask IP addresses. Decentralized VPNs (dVPNs) with strong encryption (Mysterium Network, Orchid, or Sentinel) also make it harder to betray users’ privacy.

Examples:

• Hacktivists use encrypted messaging platforms like Telegram, Signal, or IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to prevent unauthorized access.
• Virtual machines and Tails OS (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), a privacy-focused operating system that runs without installation, ensure minimal digital traces.
• Crypto mixers or tumblers (protocols like Monero that break the blockchain’s transparent transaction chain) allow hacktivists actions to accept donations or move funds without exposing their network.

6. Evasion Tactics

Group-IB’s investigations, reported in the 2025 High-Tech Crime Trends, reveal that modern hacktivist groups have adopted sophisticated methods and tools to evade detection from traditional security defenses.

Examples:

• Rotating through extensive lists of proxy servers, VPNs, or botnets to obscure the origin of their traffic and bypass IP-based blocking.
• DDoS attacks target the application layer (Layer 7) to overwhelm web applications rather than traditional critical infrastructure layers. The IT Army of Ukraine claimed to have created a special program that bypasses Russian anti-DDoS filters by mimicking legitimate traffic.
• Embedding false linguistic or geopolitical clues within malware to delay effective response by security teams and law enforcement.

7. Proprietary Software

Some hacktivist groups have built customized malware, wiper viruses, DDoS platforms, and leak sites to deploy on specific targets.

Examples:

• In 2023, a hacktivist group created a new Linux wiper malware to attack organizations. Another hacktivist group repurposed leaked Conti ransomware source code as a wiper to destroy data.
• A hacktivist collective, “NoName057(16)”, developed a crowdsourced DDoS platform called DDosia. Publicized on the group’s Telegram, hacktivists gamified the bot program by offering cryptocurrency bounties for taking down government and media websites.
• A customized leak site to expose stolen personal details of military and security personnel.

Hacktivists also employ obfuscation and encryption techniques for their malware payloads to avoid detection by antivirus and intrusion detection systems. These tactics include using packers, encrypting payloads with custom keys, or injecting malicious code into legitimate processes.

Although conventional sandboxes can detect and attribute malware, they barely scratch the surface. Group-IB’s Malware Reports tool rapidly analyzes malware strains used by hacktivists, allowing security professionals to focus on critical threats and strengthen defenses.

The free tool automates malware analysis from more than two million reports of public malware samples, dissected by our Malware Detonation Platform (as part of Group-IB Managed XDR), for a complete view of the threat journey, from initial infection to the final payload.

Examples of Infamous Attacks by Hacktivist Groups

Below are several infamous hacktivism events highlighting the various tactics and tools hacktivists use.

1. Operation Darknet

In 2011, an Anonymous-affiliated action targeted child pornography sites on the dark web. Hacktivists infiltrated a hidden service called Lolita City, published thousands of usernames of its members, and demanded that authorities take action.

It knocked the site offline with a DDoS attack and worked out which firm was hosting the image links to images.

2. Ashley Madison Data Dump

In July 2015, “The Impact Team” hacked a Canadian dating site for married people and stole the details of 32 million users.

When the company refused to shut down, hacktivists published the entire user database on the dark web, provoking a mass divorce and/or heartbreak epidemic. They justified the data breach as morally motivated, calling out the site for profiteering from infidelity and deceit.

3. Panama Papers

In 2016, the world learned of the “Panama Papers,” a massive leak of offshore banking and shell company records from the law firm Mossack Fonseca.

An anonymous insider, known only as John Doe, leaked the documents from Mossack Fonseca to expose how the wealthy hid their assets. Hacktivists and journalists later used Signal, SecureDrop, VeraCrypt, and encrypted email to transfer and analyze massive volumes of data without detection.

4. Clinton Email Leaks

In 2016, WikiLeaks published thousands of internal Democratic Party emails that had been stolen during the U.S. presidential campaign.

Phishing emails were sent to Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and other officials. These emails contained deceptive messages prompting recipients to click on malicious links and enter their login credentials.

Malware used by suspected Russian-linked hacker groups, Fancy Bear (APT28) and Cozy Bear (APT29), allowed remote access and surveillance, facilitating data exfiltration from compromised networks.

How to Counter Hacktivist Attacks

Protecting your organization against hacktivism requires real-time threat monitoring, comprehensive attack surface visibility, and customized intelligence feeds to help maintain a secure ecosystem.

Group-IB helps to:

• Continuously monitor your digital footprint: Group-IB Digital Risk Protection (DRP) collects data from social media, domains, cloud, dark web, public/private feeds, and marketplaces. It leverages proprietary Threat Intelligence insights for updated data about hacktivist groups.
• Reduce your attack surface: Group-IB Attack Surface Management (ASM) automatically discovers and assesses exposed digital assets, enabling your team to close security gaps and minimize the likelihood of successful attacks.

Recognizing the growing risks of cyber threats, Sinority (a cybersecurity company based in Bangkok) integrated Group-IB’s ASM and DRP solutions to rapidly detect and remove malicious activities.

Government agencies have seen a decrease in phishing sites and improved their ability to protect citizens from scams. The automated takedown feature also helped save time and resources that would otherwise be spent on manual processes.

As hacktivist threats evolve, so too should your vigilance. Get in touch with our experts today to enable digital risk protection for your business and stay protected from hacktivist attacks or other disruptive digital risks.