Anonymous hacker goes undercover to expose lesser known pro-Isis Twitter accounts

A hacker claiming to be affiliated to hacktivist collective Anonymous has been targeting Twitter accounts of pro-Islamic State (Isis) users by flooding them with adult content. The hacker specifically targets those accounts that are reportedly recruiting members for the terror group. He is believed to be hijacking the accounts of IS (Daesh) supporters and later poses as one of them to monitor and expose hidden members.

Following the horrible massacre in Orlando, the hacker posted several Tweets, vowing to go after pro-IS accounts, in retaliation for the attack.

The hacker goes by the alias WauchulaGhost. He told Softpedia: "There are a few things that the Islamic State fear. One is women and the second is porn. The porn operation is not something new. It's been around for a while. Over the last year the use of porn against the Islamic State has been minimal. Recently other groups have started targeting Isis using PornBots."

"There are a few reasons for jacking their accounts," WauchulaGhost added. "One is exposing their information (IP, phone records) to the public. Second is defacing the account. Adding our own images and basically showing them 'We are in control.' Third reason is we use some of the jacked accounts to actually communicate and monitor other accounts from the inside as there are a lot of protected accounts that the public can't see."

The Anonymous campaign involves various pornbots, which are basically fake adult-based Twitter accounts that have been designed to automatically identify and follow pro-Daesh accounts. "We felt that along with jacking accounts we could help by using the porn on the accounts we take and also by creating more 'PornBots' to target Daesh accounts. The main goal is to flood Daesh accounts with Porn images. Nothing x rated, just simple sexy photos," WauchulaGhost added. "I said a long time ago that Daesh use social media as a mega horn to spread their propaganda and fear. It has always been our goal to take that mega horn away from them."

The hacker also said that he has created a Twitter list, which helps keep track of accounts that he has hijacked so far. At the time of writing, there were 162 accounts on his list – mostly of those who shared videos of beheadings – and all of them were suspended by Twitter.

"The last benefit of taking these accounts is we are creating confusion and distrust. Daesh are getting unsure of which accounts are good and which are not. They never know which account the Ghost [referring to himself] will be hiding in," the hacker explained.

It is uncertain whether the recent hacks on pro-IS Twitter accounts have any connection or similarity with the massive breaches sustained by various tech firms like LinkedIn, MySpace and others.

"I have been asked many times 'How are you gaining access to these accounts?' I will only say this. Everything has a vulnerability. Twitter has a few. We use those vulnerabilities to our advantage. It's what we do," the hacker stressed.