Hacker Interviews – WauchulaGhost, a Ghost that hacks for our children

Enjoy the interview with WauchulaGhost (@wauchulaghost), one of the most active hackers in the fight against the IS online.

Military, law enforcement, and hackers have the same the same goal, disrupt the propaganda activities managed by the Islamic State and interfere with IS daily functions, like paying its fighters.

There is a silent cyber army of volunteers that every day hunts IS members online, WauchulaGhost is one of these silent warriors.

Recently he took over a large number of Twitter accounts belonging to the IS replacing the profile pictures of the hacked IS Twitter accounts with porn pictures displaying text like ‘I Love Porn.’

The vast majority of Twitter accounts targeted by the hackers were from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria.

I don’t want to tell you more … enjoy the interview with WauchulaGhost:

Hi WauchulaGhost, first of all, thank you. You are one of the hackers that every day silently fights to destroy IS activities online, could you tell me which his your technical background and when you started hacking?

I would say it started years ago when I first purchased a computer. I knew a little about them and had always been curious as to how they worked. After purchasing I took it home and disassembled it completely. Of course, it didn’t work when I reassembled it.

Needless to say, it went back. The tech looked at it, then looked at me and invited me back into his lab. A week later I was building and programming PC’s and learning as I went. I enjoyed it so it’s something I kept going with eventually building websites for companies and now I run multiple networks, Email servers, Online payment systems etc. At night I become the Ghost. People ask why? I can only say to the people, for the future of this world, our children. The world today is a very sad place and seems to be getting worse. If we can improve things, change things or even save lives, then we have succeeded. In the past year, we have done that. While in my former group, we assisted in preventing a Terrorist attack. 17 people were arrested. We just want to make the world a little better. Islamic State has become a nightmare for the world and I will do what I can to slow their progress.

What was your greatest hacking challenge?

Not getting caught would be #1. Not all hackers will identify their challenges and for good reasons. The best hackers are the ones who never brag about what they have done. Bragging will only get you caught. I’m pretty quiet about what I do, how I do it and what tools I use. Again, I’m not like most. I tend to stay to myself. Even in public. I pretty much work, then go straight home. I hate loud, busy places. My preference is a quiet dark place, the Ghost Den 😉 But I will say password cracking was a challenge. Not using software, but SE’ing. I had a fellow employee that wasn’t really into tech stuff ask me about passwords. So I started talking to him. Asking questions and giving advice. After about 20 minutes I wrote down 5 passwords and asked him if any of those belonged to his Facebook account. He sat down at his terminal and changed his password. Complex people….Think Complex!!

Do you think that IS militant are exploiting Dark Nets and other covert channels for communication? Which ones?

Somewhat. I know they had and still have onion sites. As far as communication it’s mostly chat apps. The largest right now is Telegram. I have jacked hundreds of ISIS accounts. I’ve communicated with them via those accounts. And a few have requested not to talk on twitter and sent me links to their chat groups. But these days those chats don’t last long. The problem with ISIS going dark is they like the attention on the surface too much. Going dark would be no fun for them. Which are the most interesting hacking communities on the web today? I would have to say Twitter and

Which are the most interesting hacking communities on the web today?

I would have to say Twitter and Fedbook (Facebook). There are a large variety of hackers there. Then you have those that only communicate via secured chat like jabber.

Personally, I’m not in big into groups or large communities. I tend to stay alone. Although you wouldn’t expect that by looking at my twitter account.

Do you believe that the IS represents a serious threat to critical infrastructure worldwide? Why?

IS in general, No, I don’t see them as a threat to infrastructure.

However, there are people around the world that support them and have the knowledge and ability to do some damage if they put their heads together. Right now they are using social media to spread their propaganda and fear, which they were doing rather well. It’s been our goal to slow this process down. If you take the fear away, they are nothing. Same goes with the news.

If Major media would stop publishing “What ISIS has done” (Attacks, deaths, etc.) and focus more on what’s being done Against them you would see a major change. Sort of like Serial Killers, They love seeing their work on the News.

We often hear about cyber weapons and cyber attacks against critical infrastructure. Do you believe it is real the risk of a major and lethal cyber attack against a critical infrastructure?

Yes and No. Does Islamic State have that capability? No, but as stated above, there are people (Hackers) that do support them and do have the capability.

The response was yes. So Yes, there is the possibility that foreign hacking groups with US-based hackers could possibly find vulnerabilities in our infrastructure.

Based on your experience, which is the technical background of IS militant online? Most of them that I have talked to and went up against have basic knowledge, for the most part they aren’t that Tech Savvy. 😉

In closing, I would like to say this to all those wanting to help with this fight.

PLEASE think about your safety online first. OpSec-Operational Security is your Priority. Make sure you are secure online. 2 of the biggest things are VPN’s and the use of Tor browser. The last thing I want is an innocent person being exposed to these Psycho’s .

So please make #OpSec #1. And if you have a family, Spend time with them. Do Not let this consume you

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – WauchulaGhost, hacking)