March 15, 2012, 3:04 PM —
Here's a tip for how to safely use the operating system various media outlets have reported was released this week by the hacktivist collective Anonymous: Don't.
" #Protip - Don't use Anonymous OS, we don't know anything about it and can't vouch for it." --@YourAnonNews, 11 a.m., 15 March, 2012.
Reported originally as having been released by members of Anonymous, the OS is based on the Ubuntu 11.10 distribution of Linux, the MATE user interface found in Linux Mint and contains a raft of tools to sniff the security of web sites, launch denial of service attacks, SQL injections, password crackers and Anonymous' own Low Orbit Ion Cannon DDOS tool.
It was distributed with a note asking those who try it not to use it to take down web sites. It was distributed for "education purposes to checking the security of web pages," according to its authors.
It's also completely fake, infected with the Zeus Trojan horse, which is tenaciously effective at stealing banking passwords and financial information from both end users and the banks themselves.
