The Guy Fawkes Mask, a stylized depiction of Guy Fawkes’ (the best known member of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the English Palace of Westminster in London) face, has become a global symbol of protest against politicians, banks, and other financial institutions, originally popularized by the 2005 movie “V for Vendetta”.
More specifically within the cyber security world, protesters part of the hacktivist group Anonymous popularized the mask during their 2008 Project Chanology protest against the Church of Scientology as a means of concealing their identities from the church—an organization known to harass its critics. In fact, according to Time in 2011, the Guy Fawkes Mask’s used in protests led it to become the top selling mask on Amazon.com.