Daily Archives: December 27, 2014

Image: Elizabeth Pierson, Mashable

By Rex Santus2014-12-27 01:56:41 UTC

There are a lot of tools online that claim to offer you total privacy. But when dealing with something like Internet anonymity, it's hard to be sure.

One that's widely agreed to be among the best available is Tor. If used correctly, the Tor browser and network cloaks online activity in anonymity; your online traffic isn't traceable back to you. It's less about keeping credit card numbers secure and more about allowing you to browse the web and communicate with others without revealing who and where you are.

But Tor was attacked on Friday. The hacker group known as Lizard Squad or at least a Twitter account claiming to be involved with the collective said that it was going after Tor. According to Tor, which has confirmed the attack, but not the perpetrator, there should be no effects on anonymity or performance. But some experts have speculated that the hackers could track the network's users.

This comes one day after the hackers took credit for shutting down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. The group has claimed responsibility for numerous hacking attacks. It's not entirely clear if Lizard Squad is actually behind all of these hacks, or if the Tor attack is actually being carried out by the group.

Tor's developers openly admit it isn't bulletproof. But nothing is. A report from Wired earlier this month, for example, said the FBI used a hacking app called Metasploit to successfully identify users hiding behind Tor in 2012, and "theres evidence the FBIs anti-Tor capabilities have been rapidly advancing."

Just last week, Tor heard word of a possible attack to disable the network by seizing "specialized servers," according to a post on Tor's website. Whether the new attack is connected to these concerns is unclear.

"Any tool that says they are 100% secure all the time, they are not being accurate," Tor's development director Karen Reilly told Mashable in an interview earlier this month.

Now for a look at Tor: What it is, how it works and what the cyberattack could mean for its users.

Read more:
What you need to know about Tor and the hackers targeting it