TeaMp0isoN Hacks MI6 Phones

Mischievous hacktivists phone-bomb the UK intelligence agency

Infamous hacker group TeaMp0isoN has attacked the phone lines of the UK foreign intelligence agency MI6 on Tuesday, in a 24 hour “phone bomb” hack.

The team leader TriCk later called the MI6 offices himself, providing officers with fake name and date of birth, and taunting the agency to go after him.

Hackers named extradition of terrorism suspects to the US, instead of holding trials in the UK, as the main reason for the attack.

What’s your p0isoN?

Hackers were able to make calls to the MI6 Counter Terrorism Command offices through a server located in Malaysia, for 24 hours non-stop, launching something similar to a  denial-of-service (DOS) attack.

“The script is based on the Asterisk software and uses a SIP protocol to phone,” group leader TriCk told Softpedia. “Every time they picked up the phone, the server would play a robot voice which said ‘teampoison’.”

TriCk later called the MI6 himself. After telling the officers “you’re being phone-bombed right now, mate”, he introduced himself as Robert West, and said his date of birth was April 4 1991.

He did this in front of a grateful audience. According to the information on YouTube, team members Axiom and Phantom were present during the recording, and their laughing is clearly heard in the background.

At the same time the MI6 officers clearly wanted to keep the culprit on the line as long as possible, asking him about his birthday presents, while trying to pinpoint his location. “I’m from the UK. I don’t brush my teeth, I like tea”, TriCk said in an obviously American accent.

After a while, the hacker came clear with his mission: “We embarrass the governments and f*** the police”. Shockingly, several minutes later one of the officers dropped the call, instead of attempting to gather more information.

According to Softpedia, the attack was a response to the recent events when the counter terrorist command and the UK court system extradited Babar Ahmad, Adel Abdel Bary and a few other terrorism suspects to be trialled in the US.

Hours after the attack, another phone call took place, this time between MI6 and another agency, quite possibly the FBI. The agency must have not realised it is still vulnerable. The conversation was recorded by TeaMp0isoN, and shared online. In it, MI6 officers explain the nature of the attack, and admit they have received about 700 bogus calls in two days.

MI6 has said it will report the hack to the PCeU, the Metropolitan Police’s E-Crime Unit, for further investigation.

TeaMp0isoN rose to infamy last year after hacking the servers of the United Nations Development Programme and sharing Tony Blair’s national insurance number.

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