milw0rm is a group of "hacktivists" best known for penetrating the computers of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai, the primary nuclear research facility of India, on June 3, 1998. The group conducted hacks for political reasons, including the largest mass hack up to that time, inserting an anti-nuclear weapons agenda and peace message on its hacked websites. The group's logo featured the slogan "Putting the power back in the hands of the people."
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.
Little is known about the members of milw0rm, which is typical of hacking groups, which often conceal members' identities to avoid prosecution. The international hacking team "united only by the Internet" was composed of teenagers who went by the aliases of JF, Keystroke, ExtreemUK, savec0re, and VeNoMouS. VeNoMouS, 18, hailed from New Zealand, ExtreemUK and JF, 15, from England, Keystroke, 16, from the US and Savec0re, 17, from Holland.
JF went on to achieve a modicum of notoriety when MTV "hacked" its own website intentionally and graffitied the words "JF Was Here" across the page, at the same time that JF was under investigation for the milw0rm attacks by Scotland Yard. Hundreds of pages hosted on MTV.com sported the new JF logo, including one page that read, "JF was here, greets to milw0rm".[12] MTV later confirmed that the alleged JF "hack" was a publicity stunt to promote the appearance of a commentator named Johnny Fame at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards. Many were puzzled by the apparent hack committed by JF since the hacker was "known for relatively high ethical standards."
VeNoMouS claimed that he learned to crack into systems from Ehud Tenenbaum, an Israeli hacker known as The Analyzer.