Cyber Incident Victim: Monsanto
Date:
Jan 2014
Location:
South Korea
Summary
Anonymous hackers targeted the South Korean website of Monsanto, defacing a news releases page and leaking database information as part of Operation Green Rights, redirecting visitors to the company's main site. This marked the second breach of the subsidiary's site, accompanied by distributed denial-of-service attacks against the corporation and other GMO firms, with the group accusing the company of environmental harm, contamination, and genocide against humanity.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 3 techniques |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On January 20, 2014, hackers affiliated with the Anonymous collective compromised the South Korean website of Monsanto (monsantokorea.com) as part of their ongoing Operation Green Rights campaign. The attackers defaced a page within the website’s "news releases" section, replacing its original content with a political message accusing Monsanto of responsibility for "genocide, environmental disaster, and mass contamination." In addition to the defacement, the group extracted and leaked unspecified database information from the compromised systems. Visitors attempting to access monsantokorea.com were redirected to Monsanto’s primary global website (monsanto.com) following the attack, indicating an operational disruption. This marked the second successful breach of Monsanto Korea’s website by Anonymous, demonstrating persistent targeting of this regional subsidiary.
The incident occurred shortly after Anonymous announced coordinated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against multiple Monsanto domains and other agricultural biotechnology companies over the preceding weekend. Operation Green Rights explicitly framed these actions as retaliation against Monsanto’s promotion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). While the full technical scope of the Korea website breach remains unspecified in available reports, the compromise involved both unauthorized content modification and data exfiltration. Monsanto’s mitigation response included redirecting web traffic to its main domain, effectively taking the Korean subsidiary site offline. No details regarding data restoration, forensic investigations, or legal responses were disclosed in the immediate aftermath. The attack highlighted recurring cybersecurity challenges for Monsanto’s regional operations amid sustained hacktivist opposition to its agricultural practices.