Jordan and Taylor (2004) state that hacktivism is hacking for a social or political change that can be triggered by different social or political views in society such as laws, religion, or culture. Also, hacktivism is another way to protest politically. As more computers and the increase of the internet from the early 90s worldwide in the developed countries, hacking was portrayed by the media as someone who took someone else’s computer with bad intent which started hacktivism. For example, in 1985 in the United Kingdom the Duke of Edinburgh was hacked and emails and credit card information were leaked. This case demonstrated why the UK made its anti-hacking laws. Additionally, this case showed that hacking can be used to commit a crime. Knapp and Langill (2015) state that the characteristics of hacktivism when talking about the offenders is usually one main theme. Hacktivism is usually committed by groups instead of individuals who have a lack of trust and respect for the government, justice system, and the authorities. These are usually the victims when hacktivism occurs. This is significant because it shows why hacktivism is committed. Hacktivists rebel against them because they are against traditional political values and ethics. Their methods can be legal and illegal but always non-violent. Hacktivist groups operate in a community and have different labels such as hackers, activists, or hacktivists. One example of a known hacktivist group is Anonymous. This group was formed in 2003 and is known for multiple cyberattacks against different governments across the world fighting against injustice and always having political motivation. They have various methods when it comes to cyberattacks such as uploading viruses to specific targets to an institution, vandalizing websites as a form of political protest, or the most common one which is leaking private information. For example, in 2011 Anonymous launched a cyberattack against the United Kingdom home office servers by uploading a virus and overloading their servers. They did this because the UK wanted to create new laws to monitor everyone’s web and phone traffic which Anonymous saw as a violation of privacy. This is significant because it shows how a slight change of political goals can instigate hacktivism. Furthermore, it also shows the impact hacktivism or cybercrime has had on governments and organizations to take precautions for cyber-attacks since the increase of these attacks ever since the mid-1990s. This is the extent to which hacktivism has become a problem and as the years go by it will only increase and evolve. 2011 alone had 83% network cyber-attacks (Mansfield-Devine 2011). Overall, the section has gone into depth into the history of hacktivism with examples and statistics of it. Additionally, showing why hacktivism is committed. 

 

 

 

(Figure 1: Jamie, 2020) 

(This is what the famous Hacktivist group Anonymous wear and have very big mainstream supporters and followers)