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Link to link then. Reliable enough now?
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The Jester's QR Code ran quietly for five days before a savvy Twitter user going by the moniker rootdial noticed the embedded code and mentioned it.<ref name=msncom /> In those five days, The Jester wrote "Over 1,200 curious netizens scanned the QR code . . . Of those, over 500 devices reverse-shelled back to the listening server. Of those, a significant number were on the '[hit]-list' and as such treated as valid targets."<ref name=msncom /><ref>[http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/curiosity-pwned-the-cat/] th3j35t3r.wordpress.com</ref>
The Jester's QR Code ran quietly for five days before a savvy Twitter user going by the moniker rootdial noticed the embedded code and mentioned it.<ref name=msncom /> In those five days, The Jester wrote "Over 1,200 curious netizens scanned the QR code . . . Of those, over 500 devices reverse-shelled back to the listening server. Of those, a significant number were on the '[hit]-list' and as such treated as valid targets."<ref name=msncom /><ref>[http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/curiosity-pwned-the-cat/] th3j35t3r.wordpress.com</ref>


On March 12, The Jester posted an encrypted file containing the data harvested from his QR Code.<ref name=snd /> In a private communication, SecurityNewsDaily asked The Jester why he'd encrypted the information rather than post it in regular, plain text. "I encrypt my [data] dumps as a matter of course because I am not the same as my detractors who drop personal info all the time," he replied. "The right people have the plain text dump. It would be highly irresponsible of me to be dropping anything in the open."<ref name=snd />
On March 12, The Jester posted an encrypted file containing the data harvested from his QR Code.<ref name=snd /> In a private communication, SecurityNewsDaily asked The Jester why he'd encrypted the information rather than post it in regular, plain text. "I encrypt my [data] dumps as a matter of course because I am not the same as my detractors who drop personal info all the time," he replied. "The right people have the plain text dump. It would be highly irresponsible of me to be dropping anything in the open."<ref name=snd /> A small portion of the information was released into the public domain on March 3<ref>[http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/186955261808885761 Information] leaked by Jester.</ref> and the Jester insinuated on his Twitter account that he may soon release more.


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 09:38, 3 April 2012

For other uses, see Jester.

The Jester (also known by the leetspeak handle th3j35t3r[1]) is a computer vigilante[2] who describes himself as grey hat[3] "hacktivist."[4] He or she claims to be responsible for attacks[4] on WikiLeaks,[5] 4chan,[6] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,[5] and Islamist websites.[7] He claims to be acting out of American patriotism.[8] The Jester uses a denial-of-service (DoS) tool known as "XerXeS", that he claims to have developed.[5] One of The Jester's habits is to tweet "TANGO DOWN" on Twitter whenever he successfully takes down a website.[6]

History

Military service

The Jester had stated that he/she was a former soldier and had served in Afghanistan and elsewhere.[5][7] A former defense operative claimed that The Jester was a former military contractor involved in US Special Operations Command projects.[8]

The Jester claims to have originally developed his DoS script as a means to test and harden servers.[9] After learning from an article that Jihadists were using the Internet to recruit and coordinate terror cells, The Jester resolved to disrupting online communications between Jihadists.[10] He weaponized his script and created a front-end known as "XerXeS"[11] in order to solve the script's usability problems.[9]

Hacking history

On January 1, 2010, The Jester began a campaign against Jihadist websites. His first target was alemarah.info, which was the Taliban's website at the time.[12][13][14]

On November 28, 2010, The Jester posted several tweets claiming to be responsible for the downtime WikiLeaks was experiencing.[6] He justified his alleged attacks by claiming that WikiLeaks was "attempting to endanger the lives of our [US] troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations."[5] In retaliation to The Jester's reported efforts hacktivists including a group named Anonymous in support of WikiLeaks were reported as temporarily disrupting the website of MasterCard as well as attacking websites of Amazon and Paypal.[15]

On November 29, 2010, someone claiming to be The Jester stated that he had been raided by the U.S. and attempted to solicit money for legal fees. The Jester purported that the person was an imposter, though writers at InfoSecIsland believe the hoax was created by The Jester himself.[16][17]

On December 28, 2010, a DoS attack targeted 4chan.org. On that same day, The Jester tweeted "4chan.org — that looks like a TANGO DOWN (not) maybe you guys pissed off the wrong person trying to (wrongly) ID me?"[6] This tweet is believed to be a reference to 4chan's claims that The Jester was a man from Montana.[6][18]

On February 21, 2011, The Jester began a DoS attack on several sites belonging to the Westboro Baptist Church for allegedly celebrating the death of homosexual U.S. service men.[19]

In March of 2011, The Jester employed a different style of attack by injecting fabricated articles into online Libyan newspapers The Malta Independent Online and the Tripoli Post. On March 28, 2011 he tweeted links to the articles without any further comment. These tweets drew the attention of Anthony M. Freed, who examined the articles and discovered they were anomalies not contained in the newspapers' respective archives.[20] Further inspection by Freed revealed The Jester left a watermark of his signature Harlequin avatar on the articles he created, which can only be seen by tilting the computer monitor back at an angle. The fabricated articles reported degradation in troop morale among fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and incidents of his soldiers abandoning their posts. Freed concluded The Jester's objective was a "psyops campaign aimed at breaking the spirit of the troops loyal to Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi."[20] The Jester confirmed this in a subsequent interview later the same year.[21]

In June 2011 The Jester vowed to find and expose members of LulzSec.[22] He has attempted to obtain and publish the real world personally identifiable information of key members, whom he describes as "childish".[23] On June 24, 2011, he claimed to have revealed the identity of LulzSec leader Sabu as Xavier Kaotico, an information technology consultant possibly from New York City.[24] In July of the same year he falsely accused Hugo Carvlho, a Portuguese IT professional, of also being Sabu, leaving The Jester's outing claims to be considered suspect.[25] However, in a post on his blog in November 2011, The Jester retracted his prior identifications for "Sabu", issued an apology and correctly identified "Sabu" as Hector Xavier Monsegur, 28, of New York.[26] Sabu's identity was confirmed on March 6, 2012 when Fox News broke the story that Monsegur had been arrested by the FBI in June of 2011 and had been acting as an FBI informant in the interim.[27]

In October 2011, at the Hackers Halted USA conference, The Jester gave a surprise live presentation and fielded questions through an online chat with presenter Jeff Bardin.[21] His identity was authenticated via his Twitter account. Jester answered questions about XerXes and other tools in development, and discussed his motivations for attacking militant jihadi recruiting websites. He also hinted he may have been physically present at the conference.

Late November, th3j35t3r claimed to take down multiple jihadist sites permanently, with his newest tool known as 'Saladin'.[28][29][30] Saladin is claimed to be similar to other 'Apache Killer' tools used by hackers.

The SANS Report: The Jester: A Lesson in Asymmetric Warfare

In December 2011, Maj. TJ OConnor, Army Officer, GSE, OSCP, OSWP, C|EH, a research analyst in the Information Technology and Operations Center (ITOC),[31] produced a comprehensive report for the SANS Institute detailing the history of The Jester's hacking campaigns titled "The Jester Dynamic: A Lesson in Asymmetric Unmanaged Cyber Warfare".[32] The paper examines the history, motives and impact of two years worth of The Jester's hacking, and provides a detailed analysis of the timeline of his attacks, a speculative analysis of the tools he may use, and review of his use of social media and public relations through his blog.

QR Code Attack

On March 5, 2012 The Jester changed his Twitter account @th3j35t3r avatar from his signature Jester icon to a QR Code without comment or explanation.[33] QR Codes are bar codes that can be scanned by mobile phones and are most often used in advertising. Scanning a QR Code redirects your browser to a website.[34] Scanning The Jester's icon led to a URL where he had an image of his signature Jester icon and an embedded, hidden code that allegedly exploited a vulnerability that affects Safari, Chrome and Android browsers.[33] "When anyone scanned the original QR code using an iPhone or Android device, their device would silently make a TCP shell connection back to my remote server," The Jester wrote. "Like a phone call, if you like."[33]

Apparently, once connected to the Jester's server, the network diagnostic tool NetCat checked the connecting mobile device to see if it had Twitter software installed.[33] Twitter account information was then harvested and checked against a list that The Jester allegedely maintains of known Twitter accounts associated with the hacking groups Anonymous, LulzSec or AntiSec, with Wikileaks, Al Qaeda and Islamic Jihadi recruiting sites.[33] Twitter accounts that did not hit a match to the list were ignored. Possibly, when a Twitter account registered a hit on the list, the account permissions were transferred to The Jester, he elevated his permissions to allow him to exploit the entire mobile device. It is possible that in this manner The Jester was able to easily obtain access to SMS text messages, voicemail, call logs, and email on the phone.[35][36]

The Jester's QR Code ran quietly for five days before a savvy Twitter user going by the moniker rootdial noticed the embedded code and mentioned it.[33] In those five days, The Jester wrote "Over 1,200 curious netizens scanned the QR code . . . Of those, over 500 devices reverse-shelled back to the listening server. Of those, a significant number were on the '[hit]-list' and as such treated as valid targets."[33][37]

On March 12, The Jester posted an encrypted file containing the data harvested from his QR Code.[36] In a private communication, SecurityNewsDaily asked The Jester why he'd encrypted the information rather than post it in regular, plain text. "I encrypt my [data] dumps as a matter of course because I am not the same as my detractors who drop personal info all the time," he replied. "The right people have the plain text dump. It would be highly irresponsible of me to be dropping anything in the open."[36] A small portion of the information was released into the public domain on March 3[38] and the Jester insinuated on his Twitter account that he may soon release more.

References

  1. ^ Keizer, Gregg (2010-11-30). "WikiLeaks moves to Amazon servers after DOS attacks". Computerworld New Zealand. Retrieved 2010-12-29.
  2. ^ "Hacktivist Tactics Raise Ethical Questions". Infosecisland.com. 2010-01-27. Retrieved 2011-08-30.
  3. ^ th3j35t3r (2010-07-03). "[Interview] The Jester" (Interview). Interviewed by ethicalhack3r. Retrieved 2010-12-29. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ a b th3j35t3r. "About Jester". th3j35t3r.wordpress.com. WordPress. Retrieved 2010-12-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ a b c d e Winter, Jana (2010-12-03). "'Hacktivist' Jester Claims Responsibility for WikiLeaks Attack". Fox News. Retrieved 2010-12-29.
  6. ^ a b c d e Nelson, Steven (2010-12-28). "Patriotic 'hackitivist for good' may be behind takedown of 4chan.org". The Daily Caller. Retrieved 2010-12-29.
  7. ^ a b Rosenbach, Marcel; Stark, Holger (2010-12-07). "Julian Assange Becomes US's Public Enemy No. 1". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 2011-12-02.
  8. ^ a b Vance, Ashlee (2010-12-03). "WikiLeaks Struggles to Stay Online After Attacks". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-12-29.
  9. ^ a b Freed, Anthony M. (2010-02-10). "Jester Unveils XerXeS Automated DoS Attack". Infosec Island. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
  10. ^ Freed, Anthony M. (2010-02-04). "More Talks with Anti-Jihadi Hacker The Jester". Infosec Island. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
  11. ^ Bailey, Laurelai (2010-07-08). "XerXeS source code". SecLists.Org Security Mailing List. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
  12. ^ th3j35t3r (2010-06-30). "Hacker macht Jagd auf Online-Dschihadisten" (Interview). Interviewed by Florian Flade. Retrieved 2010-12-29. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  13. ^ th3j35t3r (2010-06-30). "Unredacted Original Interview with Newspaper 'Die Welt'" (Interview). Interviewed by Florian Flade. Retrieved 2010-12-29. {{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter |program= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ "Afghan Taliban deny meeting U.N. envoy". Reuters. 2010-01-30. Retrieved 2011-01-03.
  15. ^ David Leigh, Luke Harding WikiLeaks cyber attacks: a tango with the Jester The Guardian, 2 February 2011
  16. ^ "Did WikiLeaks Hacker The Jester Pull Police Raid Hoax?". Infosecisland.com. 2010-12-02. Retrieved 2011-08-30.
  17. ^ Sullivan, Bob (2010-12-07). "Red Tape - WikiLeaks hacker a villain or a hero?". Redtape.msnbc.msn.com. Retrieved 2011-08-30.
  18. ^ Prefect (2010-12-10). "Anonymous Turns Operation Payback Toward "The Jester"". Praetorian Prefect. Retrieved 2011-01-02.
  19. ^ (2011-03-24) "Hacktivist Maintains Attack on Westboro Baptist Church" Retrieved 28 March 2011
  20. ^ a b Freed, Anthony (2011-03-30). "Patriot Hacker The Jester's Libyan Psyops Campaign". Infosec Island. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
  21. ^ a b "Hacktivist "The Jester" Draws Crowd at Hacker Halted". Infosec Island. 2011-10-31. Retrieved 2011-11-23.
  22. ^ Poeter, Damon (24 June 2011). "Will LulzSec's Hit on Arizona Cops be its Last Hurrah?". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  23. ^ Halliday, Josh (24 June 2011). "LulzSec: the members and the enemies". The Guardian. London. Guardian Media Group. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  24. ^ Chapman, Stephen (24 June 2011). "LulzSec's leader, Sabu, revealed?". ZDNet. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  25. ^ "The Quest to Unmask the Ringleader of Anonymous - Technology". The Atlantic Wire. 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2011-08-30.
  26. ^ Wagenseil, Paul (8 March 2012). "Despite Being Anonymous, Hacktivist Sabu Wasn't Hard to Find". Security News Daily. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
  27. ^ Jana Winter [1] Fox News, 2012-03-06
  28. ^ http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/140916218864472064
  29. ^ http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/140919855149879296
  30. ^ http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r/status/140919628263211008
  31. ^ [2]
  32. ^ [3]
  33. ^ a b c d e f g [4]. msnbc.msn.com
  34. ^ [5]. searchengineland.com
  35. ^ [6] isc.sans.org
  36. ^ a b c [7] securitynewsdaily.com
  37. ^ [8] th3j35t3r.wordpress.com
  38. ^ Information leaked by Jester.


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