A female hacker in the mix?

June 28, 2011 at 5:46 PM ET

Is a female hacker part of the Anonymous/LulzSec hacking mob? While it wouldn't be unheard of, it would be unusual: the image of most hackers is male, macho, mischievous and misguided.

Gawker reports an Iowa woman was questioned by the FBI in connection with the activities last Thursday. Eight FBI agents showed up at Laurelai Bailey's Davenport house and proceeded to grill her about the hackers she'd been "hanging out with online," in connection with the February hack of HBGary computer security experts.

Bailey, 29, told Gawker that the agents were specifically interested in a member of LulzSec who goes by the name of "Kayla."

"Anytime I mentioned her, they seemed particularly interested," she said.

A few days later, LulzSec said it was disbanding, but not before leaving behind a slew of denial-of-service attacks that brought down several websites and divulging confidential law enforcement information from the state of Arizona. In its "final" statement, LulzSec said it had a "crew of six"; and it is believed that some of its members have also been part of Anonymous, best known for attacks earlier this year that brought down MasterCard and Visa for disrupting donations to WikiLeaks.

The FBI apparently wanted Bailey to help them infiltrate the hacker group. "They wanted to know if I could get close to them," Bailey told Gawker. "I told them these people hate me ... it wouldn't do any good." 

"Little is known for sure about Kayla," Gawker writes:

She was instrumental in the HBGary attack and was a founding member of Lulz Security. She's claimed to be a 16-year-old girl, though rumors persist that she's actually a 20-something guy from New Jersey. Others speculate Kayla is Taiwanese, or actually at sockpuppet made up of many different people. Her purported Twitter account is made up of infuriatingly opaque status updates about going partying and going on vacation. The most recent: "right gonna go get rdy bye twitter :-)".

Authorities seem to have ruled out Bailey herself as being this mystery female hacker. Bailey said she told FBI agent she has never taken part in illegal hacking, and is not a LulzSec member. "She says she became close to the hackers through her involvement with Crowdleaks, a Wikileaks-focused news website," Gawker said. "She claims she was in the room during the HBGary (attack) acting as a reporter for Crowdleaks."

But it is apparently those leaked chat logs that led law enforcement to Bailey. And perhaps they will lead to the mysterious "Kayla."

— Via Gawker

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