Anonymous hacks Eidos and Deus Ex: Human Revolution

A SPLINTER GROUP from the online hacktivists collective Anonymous has been blamed for taking down the Eidos website and Square Enix's upcoming Deus Ex: Human Revolution game web site.

For a few hours yesterday both web sites were taken offline after being defaced the day before with the text, "Owned by Chippy1337". According to the web site Krebsonsecurity, the hackers also plundered user data from 80,000 registered users and posted their online names on the web sites.

But why would Anonymous members post their own hack handles on both web sites for the world to see? Well, it seems that the hacking collective known as Anonymous, which Sony has also accused of taking down its still offline Playstation Network (PSN), has had some infighting amongst its members.

This led to hackers hacking other hackers and the Anonymous operations web site itself came under attack. Earlier this week the web site was defaced with swearing and the hackers posted the personal information and IP addresses of over 500 Anonymous members that they accused of taking down Sony's PSN.

Assuming it wasn't a rogue Sony employee mounting a revenge attack, it looks like the once harmoniously amorphous collective known as Anonymous is beginning to crack. Apparently, the Anonops Internet chat servers are aflame with rivalry and accusations between old and new Anonymous members. You can enjoy some of the not so friendly forum banter at anonnews.

Square Enix sent out a statement today to say that Eidosmontreal.com was hacked but that it didn't hold any credit card information or code. The only things that was pilfered were 350 resumes held on its servers.

But there has been no word from either the hackers or Square Enix about why they choose Eidos and the highly anticipated Deus Ex: Human Revolution game to attack. µ