The notorious group of hackers Anonymous has taken responsibility for a series of cyberattacks against Turkey. Anonymous accused the country of supporting the Islamic State, while also threatening further attacks against anyone else who supports terrorism.
The hacking collective said, “Turkey is supporting Daesh by buying oil from them, and hospitalizing their fighters. We won’t accept that Erdoğan, the leader of Turkey, will help ISIS any longer.”
According to Anonymous, Turkey has been providing both financial and logistical support to ISIS. Until Turkey ceases this alleged behavior, the group says that it will continue to conduct additional attacks against the country.
Anonymous threatened, “We will continue attacking your internet, your root DNS, your banks and take your government sites down. After the root DNS, we will start to hit your airports, military assets and private state connections. We will destroy your critical banking infrastructure.”
The attacks from Anonymous come just weeks after a similar accusation was made against Turkey by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian President has claimed that the family of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is involved in an illegal oil trade with ISIS.
Tensions between Turkey and Russia have been high ever since Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet near the border of Turkey and Syria last month. As a result of this incident, Russia has placed heavy economic sanctions against Turkey.
Officials from the United States have stated that it is unlikely that Turkey has been heavily profiting from any oil trade with ISIS. According to the American officials, the amount of oil that is smuggled into Turkey is very small and has decreased over time. The oil is said to be insignificant in terms of volume.
The Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) has denied video footage released by the Russian Ministry of Defense that allegedly shows trucks bringing ISIS oil into turkey. According to the KRG, the trucks in the video were bringing oil from the KRG to the Ceyhan Port in Turkey.
The cyberattacks against Turkey started on December 14, and they were mostly put to a stop by December 21. Nearly 400,000 websites with the .tr extension were targeted during this time period. Technology experts in Turkey responded by banning foreigners from accessing the DNS. Initially, it was believed that Russia was responsible for the attacks.
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