In the early 2010s, as Anonymous and LulzSec made global headlines, a smaller but equally notorious group emerged from the darker corners of the Internet: TeaMp0isoN (Team Poison). Where others hacked for the lulz, TeaMp0isoN claimed to hack for justice. Their slogan (“We are TeaMp0isoN, we are the voice of the voiceless”) reflected their self-styled mission to expose hypocrisy, corruption, and Western foreign policy through cyberattacks.
The origins
Founded around 2009–2010, TeaMp0isoN was composed mainly of young hackers from the U.K. and South Asia. Their leader, known online as TriCk (real name Junaid Hussain), was a teenager from Birmingham, England. He was sharp, outspoken, and fiercely political.
Hussain and his crew operated with a mix of hacker activism and street-level ideology, blending cyber skills with a strong sense of anti-establishment rebellion.
The hacks
TeaMp0isoN became infamous for their targeted digital campaigns against corporations, government institutions, and political figures.
Among their most notable operations:
- Tony Blair’s private emails (2011): TeaMp0isoN breached a personal account belonging to the former U.K. Prime Minister’s adviser, leaking contact lists and internal communications.
- United Nations and NATO websites: TeaMp0isoN defaced them with anti-war and anti-Western messages.
- MI6 phone lines (2012): in collaboration with Anonymous offshoot ZCompany Hacking Crew (ZHC), they claimed to have redirected calls from the MI6 anti-terror hotline to a pro-Palestine message.
- Facebook, BlackBerry, and government portals: TeaMp0isoN caused multiple disruptions meant to highlight privacy issues and surveillance hypocrisy.
Unlike LulzSec, their hacks were rarely about fun. They were always accompanied by manifestos or messages condemning Western militarism, drone strikes, or corporate exploitation.
Operation Robin Hood
TeaMp0isoN worked intermittently with Anonymous, most famously during Operation Robin Hood, a campaign supporting Occupy Wall Street. But ideological differences soon created friction: while Anonymous was largely non-partisan and decentralized, TeaMp0isoN adopted a clear political and moral stance, aligning with anti-imperialist and at times extremist rhetoric. They were propagandists in the digital sense, weaponizing leaks to drive a narrative.
The fall of TriCk
In 2012, British authorities arrested Junaid Hussain, then only 18, for hacking the personal Gmail account of Tony Blair’s adviser and publishing sensitive data online. He was sentenced to six months in prison, a relatively light sentence given the scale of his actions, but the event marked the end of TeaMp0isoN’s peak.
After his release, Hussain’s path darkened. By 2015, he had joined the Islamic State’s cyber division, known as the “Cyber Caliphate.” Under the alias Abu Hussain al-Britani, he helped coordinate online recruitment and cyber operations for ISIS until he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Raqqa, Syria, in August 2015.
The legacy of TeaMp0isoN
TeaMp0isoN’s story showed that hacking could be deeply ideological and a tool for fighting political and moral battles.
However, it also showed how hacktivism can drift into extremism. Many cybersecurity researchers view TeaMp0isoN as the pivot point between hacktivism and cyberterrorism.