Threats Posed by Anonymous Group to Organizational and Government Web sites

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Introduction

The anonymous group is driven by the injustice either by the government or organizations towards a specific group of people and, therefore, perceives their actions as retribution. They aim to embarrass or blackmail the government and organizations by taking down essential sites or leaking crucial data to jeopardize their operations (Kumar & Goyal, 2019). Tracking the anonymous group members has proven difficult as the identity of its members is known. For this reason, it is difficult for the government and private organizations at risk of exposure to assess their capabilities. The disclosure of vital data to the public can cause irreversible damage to organizations. This paper will discuss how serious the threats of the anonymous group are to the government and organizations’ websites.

Through hacking government websites, the anonymous group access and expose confidential information to the public. The exposure of this information can cause a threat to national security. Some of the top-secret information by the government include strategies it would employ in the economic trends, counter infiltrations from terrorists and handle aggression from neighboring countries (Kuehn & Salter, 2020). Leaking this information would weaken a government’s advantage over its enemies, both political and economical, making it vulnerable. It can lead to terror attacks against a nation, loss of lives, and economic backwardness. Furthermore, the government is forced to use many resources to hire cyber security experts to salvage information, develop new strategies, and comply with the global market trends.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most organizations partially or fully digitized their operations. It means that they rely heavily on their websites to communicate with their clients, sell their products and make profits. An invasion by the anonymous group would therefore disorient their activities and lead to a loss of control. Organizations also suffer financial losses, and some are forced to shut down entirely following exposure of vital and confidential data or the closure of their essential websites (Treverton et al., 2018). It becomes challenging to stay afloat, relevant, and compete with their rival now that their strategies have been exposed. In addition, employees and their clients lose their trust in the organization. They become skeptical regarding sharing their information with the organization that would otherwise help the organization move forward.

References

Kuehn, K. M., & Salter, L. A. (2020). Assessing digital threats to democracy, and workable solutions: a review of the recent literature. International Journal of Communication, 14, 22.

Kumar, R., & Goyal, R. (2019). On cloud security requirements, threats, vulnerabilities, and countermeasures: A survey. Computer Science Review, 33, 1-48.

Treverton, G. F., Thvedt, A., Chen, A. R., Lee, K., & McCue, M. (2018). Addressing hybrid threats.