"[6] The BARC attack generated heated debate on the security of information in a world prevalent with countries developing nuclear weapons and the information necessary to do so, the ethics of "hacker activists" or "hacktivists," and the importance of advanced security measures in a modern world filled with people willing and able to break into insecure international websites.

[7] The international hacking team "united only by the Internet"[citation needed][8] was composed of teenagers[9] who went by the aliases of JF, Keystroke, ExtreemUK, savec0re, and VeNoMouS.

They changed the center's webpage to display a mushroom cloud along with an anti-nuclear message and the phrase "Don't think destruction is cool, coz its not".

[16] Milw0rm then came forward with the security flaws they exploited in BARC's system, along with some of the thousands of pages of documents they had lifted from the server, concerning India's last five nuclear detonations.

JF and VeNoMouS claimed credit by emailing Wired reporter James Glave with documents they had obtained from the BARC servers as proof.

[20] The Electronic Disturbance Theater released a statement in support of JF, applauding him for his hacktivism and maintaining that computer break-ins of this sort were not cyber-terrorism as some claim.

[24] Some of the sites hacked in the incident were for the World Cup, Wimbledon, the Ritz Casino, Drew Barrymore, and the Saudi royal family.

Along with members of the fellow hacking group Ashtray Lumberjacks,[6] milw0rm had the revised mushroom cloud image and text on all of Easyspace's websites in less than one hour.

[23] Vranesevich said that the mass hack was rare in its effect and its intention: the hackers seemed to be more interested in political purposes than exposing computer security flaws.