Anonymous Takes Credit for the 2 Million Syrian Emails Published by WikiLeaks

A few days ago, WikiLeaks published over 2 million emails allegedly obtained from Syrian officials and organizations connected to the Assad regime. The source of the large quantity of data was unknown, but a few days ago, the Anonymous community took credit for its involvement.

According to the hackers, Anonymous and its affiliated collectives were the ones who stole the emails comprising the leak known as the Syria Files.

“On Febuary 5, 2012 at approx. 4:00 PM ET USA an Anonymous Op Syria team consisting of elements drawn from Anonymous Syria, AntiSec (now known as the reformed LulzSec) and the Peoples Liberation Front succeeded in creating a massive breach of multiple domains and dozens of servers inside Syria,” the hacktivists wrote in a statement.

“This team had been working day and night in shifts for weeks to accomplish this feat. So large was the data available to be taken, and so great was the danger of detection that the downloading of this data took several additional weeks.”

On March 14, the hackers released a small part of the information they stole, including the personal emails of Assad and his wife.

However, since the collaboration between WikiLeaks and Anonymous was so fruitful in the past when the Starfor Files were released to the public, the hackers decided to let the controversial website disclose the Syria Files as well.

“While the United Nations sat back and theorized on the situation in Syria, Anonymous took action. Assisting bloggers, protesters and activists in avoiding surveillance, disseminating media, interfering with regime communications and networks, monitoring the Syrian internet for disruptions or attempts at surveillance,” they added.

“And as long as the tyrant remains defiantly in power, Anonymous will continue to work relentlessly day and night - from every country and every timezone, to assist the courageous freedom fighters and activists in Syria,” they concluded.