Last Updated on May 24, 2015

The Italian Anonymous did it again and today have attacked for the second time in few days the vatican.va website. Actually this time their attack has apparently been deeper since the infamous collective also posted a small portion of a database claimed to have been leaked from radiovaticana.org, the website of the official Vatican Radio.

The inevitable statement on pastebin (so far only in Italian) quotes Imperva, the Israeli Company Focused on Application Security which claimed, few days ago, to have prevented, in August, a summer attack against the Vatican, using the collected information to profile a typical Anonymous DDoS attack.

Of course the pastebin suggests that this attack has been a kind of retaliation against the information disclosed by Israeli Security Company in their detailed report, nevertheless this has been only the last DDoS attack in Italy in this troubled weekend that has seen several websites falling under the LOIC shots: Saturday the Italian Railways have been hit (three domains), and yesterday Equitalia, the company owning the concession, on behalf of the Government, to collect taxes.

This (un)expected revamp of DDoS activity in Italy comes approximately nearly a couple of months after the LOIC attacks unchained by the MegaUpload shutdown, and nearly nine months after the waves of attacks which made the Italian Summer a very hot season for Information Security.

Besides, so far the preferred targets of The Anonymous in Italy have been Government and Politician Websites, targeting the Vatican Site, looks like this time the Anonymous crossed the line.

As a matter of fact I have decided to write down in a table all the hacktivism-led attacks carried on Italy from the 2011 onwards. I have collected the information on the attacks during the gathering of the necessary material to prepare my timelines for 2011 and 2012. In reading the list, please consider that several DDoS attacks were only claimed by the attackers, so it is really difficult discriminate if they were succesful or not, nevertheless I thought it appropriate to insert them all to provide a global view.

So far, you will notice that the Hackvism in Italy has passed three main phases: the summer phase, maybe interrupted by the wave of arrests in July; the winter phase, as quoted above, immediately after the Megaupload shutdown on the wake of the anti-SOPA/PIPA/ACTA movements; and the current phase (may we define it a spring phase?) triggered by the delicate internal sociopolitical situation….

March 2011

04/03/2011	finmeccanica.it	DDOS	Military Industry
04/03/2011	eni.it	DDOS	Energy
04/03/2011	unicredit.it	DDOS	Finance

June 2011

21/06/2011	ilpopolodellalibertà.it	DDoS	Political Parties
21/06/2011	governoberlusconi.it	DDoS	Political Parties
21/06/2011	pdl.it	DDoS	Political Parties
21/06/2011	governoberlusconi.it	DDoS	Political Parties
21/06/2011	silvioberlusconifansclub.org	DDoS	Political Parties
21/06/2011	forzasilvio.it	DDoS	Political Parties
22/06/2011	governo.it	DDoS	Government
22/06/2011	camera.it	DDoS	Government
22/06/2011	senato.it	DDoS	Government
22/06/2011	interno.it	DDoS	Government
22/06/2011	regione.campania.it	DDoS	Government
22/06/2011	pdl.it	DDoS	Political Parties
22/06/2011	renatobrunetta.it	DDoS	Political Parties
22/06/2011	innovazionepa.gov.it	DDoS	Government
23/06/2011	governo.it	DDoS	Government
23/06/2011	agcom.it	DDoS	Government
23/06/2011	leganord.org	DDoS	Political Parties
24/06/2011	governo.it	DDoS	Government
24/06/2011	giustizia.it	DDoS	Government
28/06/2011	agcom.it	DDOS	Government
29/06/2011	camera.it	DDoS	Government
29/06/2011	pdl.it	DDoS	Government
29/06/2011	mediaset.it	DDoS	Entertainment
30/06/2011	telecomitalia.it	DDoS	ISP
30/06/2011	poste.it	DDoS	Mail
30/06/2011	borsaitaliana.it	DDoS	Finance

July 2011

01/07/2011	leganord.org	DDoS	Political Parties
01/07/2011	agcom.it	DDoS	Government
02/07/2011	innovazionepa.gov.it	DDoS	Government
02/07/2011	governo.it	DDoS	Government
03/07/2011	agcom.it	DDoS	Government
04/07/2011	agcom.it	DDoS	Government
06/07/2011	19 Universities:                  unisi.it unisa.it uniroma1.it anotonianum.eu econoca.it uniba.it unibocconi.it unifg.it unime.it unimib.it uniurb.it unibo.it unipv.it unina2.it unile.it polimi.it unito.it unimo.it	SQLi?	Education
31/07/2011	vitrociset.it	Defacement	Contractor

August 2011

03/08/2011	vitrociset.it	Defacement	Contractor
06/08/2011	sappe.it	Defacement	Law Enforcement Agencies

September 2011

02/09/2011

Undisclosed Bank

?

Finance

November 2011

29/11/2011

fiocchigfl.it

Defacement

Military Industry

December 2011

06/12/2011	torino-lione.it	Defacement	Transportation
06/12/2011	ghiglia.it	Defacement	Political Parties
19/12/2011	fabriziocorona.it	Defacement	Entertainment
19/12/2011	costantinovitaliano.it	Defacement	Entertainment

January 2012

10/01/2012	leganord.org	Defacement	Political Parties
13/01/2012	italia.gov.it	DDoS	Political Parties
22/01/2012	siae.it	DDoS	Entertainment
22/01/2012	universalmusic.it	DDoS	Entertainment
22/01/2012	copyright.it	DDoS	Entertainment
22/01/2012	giannifava.org	DDoS	Political Parties
22/01/2012	leganord.org	DDoS	Political Parties
24/01/2012	giustizia.it	DDoS	Government
26/01/2012	italia.gov.it	DDoS	Government

February 2012

11/02/2012	circondarialetorino.it	Defacement	Law Enforcement Agencies
17/02/2012	rivagroup.com	DDoS	Military Industry
17/02/2012	enel.it	DDoS	Energy
18/02/2012	mauriziopaniz.it	Defacement	Political Parties
22/02/2012	binetti.it	Defacement	Political Parties
27/02/2012	polizia.it	DDoS	Law Enforcement Agencies
27/02/2012	carabinieri.it	DDoS	Law Enforcement Agencies

March 2012

07/03/2012	vatican.va	DDoS	Religion
10/03/2012	trenitalia.it	DDoS	Transportation
10/03/2012	RFI.it	DDoS	Transportation
10/03/2012	viaggaintreno.it	DDoS	Transportation
11/03/2012	equitalia.it	DDoS	Services
12/03/2012	vatican.va	DDoS	Religion
12/03/2012	radiovaticana.org	Defacement	Religion

Related articles

• DDoS: When Size Matters… Or Not? (hackmageddon.com)
• Anonymous hacks Vatican again (zdnet.com)
• Reviewing HOIC: A New Anonymous DDoS Tool (imperva.com)