Fortune 500 Cyber Attacks Timeline

For the Infosec professionals, this troubled 2014 will be remembered for the trail of gigantic breaches unleashed nearly exactly one year ago, when the real outcome of the infamous Target breach became to emerge. The real extent of the breach was yet to be known, like also the fact that it would not have been an isolated case, but just the beginning of a nightmare.

However this is not the only example of a Fortune 500 company deeply hit, and thanks to a very smart hint by @bufferzone, I took the opportunity to collect in this timeline all the main cyber incidents involving Fortune 500 and Fortune 500 Global companies since 2011 to nowadays.

The adopted selection criteria take into considerations only incidents involving a direct impact on end users, so defacements have not been taken into consideration.

Fortune 500 Global companies are characterized by a blank value in the Rank column, whereas Fortune 500 companies are characterized by a red value. Also, when possible I inserted both values if the targeted company belongs to both charts and, in those cases in which a subsidiary company has been targeted, I have obviously inserted the rank of the parent company.

Fortune 500 Cyber Attacks TImeline (more…)

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1-15 November 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the summary of the main cyber attacks occurred in the first half of November and reported on the news.

These fifteen days have been particularly troubled from an information security perspective, having left to the records several remarkable breaches: LoyaltyBuild, affecting potentially 1.12 million individuals, CorporateCarOnline.com (850,000 individuals), MacRumors (850,000 individuals) and, last but not least, vBulletin (860,000 users affected). A damage report which appears really devastating.

But even hacktivists have been particularly active: several operations have been carried on by the Anonymous all over the world (Italy, UK, Singapore, Japan, Philippines and Ukraine). One in particular (by Indonesian hacktivists against Australian targets) has apparently created a fracture inside the collective.

Last but not least, the chronicles report the latest hack of the Syrian Electronic Army against VICE and a new wave of attacks of Pakistani hackers against Indian targets.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).1-15 November 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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1-15 December 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Maybe hackers are feeling the Christmas atmosphere since this first half of December has recorded a minor number of attacks in comparison with the previous months. However considering merely the number of attacks to evaluate the cyber landscape could bring to wrong conclusions since, even if in absolute terms the number of attacks has experienced a decrease, in several cases the amount of affected users has been really considerable.

This is the case, for instance, of the 20 million of records leaked in China (and found on WeChat) or the 2.4 million of students and employees of Maricopa Community College compromised in an Aprl Security Breach.

It is really curious to notice that in (too) many cases the breaches have been notified several months later. As also happened for JP Morgan Chase, who also had 456,000 owners of prepaid cash cards compromised in July and notified only in December.

Concerning Cyber Espionage, chronicles report of an alleged Chinese Cyber Attack during the 2013 G8 Summit in Russia, while hacktivists were constantly active in Ukraine, Turkey, India, Syria (indirectly) and, a new Entry for December, Angola.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

1-15 December 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (more…)

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16-31 December 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Let’s give the welcome to this new infosec year with the first timeline of 2014 (or better the last of 2013) summarizing the main events occurred in the second half of December 2013.

With no doubt, this holiday season has been characterized by the Target breach, whose size is constantly growing (110 million the number of potential victims according to recent estimates). This massive incident has somehow shadowed another massive breached occurred in Turkey, were Russian hackers have allegedly been able to obtain 54 million citizens’ ID Data. With similar numbers, the 300.000 users potentially affected by the Cyber Attack involving Affinity Gaming appear risible.

Other considerable events include a Christmas Intrusion on a BBC server (with the author possibly selling the backdoor access on the underground) and yet another possible intrusion by Chinese hackers on a US target, specifically the Federal Election Commission.

Nothing particularly significant on the hacktivism front characterized by the consolidated “background noise” of events whose sizes are well far from the levels of the recent years.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

16-31 December 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline Update2 (more…)

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1-15 January 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the Cyber Attacks Timeline for the first half of January 2014. I wish we had a better start for this Infosec year. Not even a month has passed (actually this timeline covers the first two weeks) and we have already seen several massive breaches (Snapchat) and other resounding events, maybe less relevant from a mere numeric perspective, but equally meaningful for the high profile of the victims involved (Microsoft).

Besides Snapchat, other important organizations have been targeted by Cyber crooks with very bad consequences: World Poker Tour (175,333), Staysure (93,000 individuals involved) and OpenSUSE (79,500 victims) are the most noticeable examples. On the cyber crime front other meaningful events include a wave of attacks against Video Games industries, and the hacking of Yahoo advertise network, infecting, potentially 27,000 users per hour.

Hacktivists of the Syrian Electronic Army are back with the result that even Microsoft is now part of the list of their victims (however their web site was also hacked in the same period). Other hacktivists very active in the same period include the infamous RedHack collective.

Last but not least, the control room of the Nuclear Plant of Monju in Japan was found infected with a malware capable of allegedly exfiltrate 42,000 emails.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

1-15 Jan 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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16-31 January 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Even if with several days of delay, it is time for the second Cyber Attacks Timeline of June January 2014 (Part I here).

Unfortunately the trail of massive breaches has continued even in the second half of the month with the two remarkable events of the 16 million of records scraped by a German botnet and also the discovery of the ChewBacca malware by RSA. Cyber Crime Chronicles also report a global password reset issued by Yahoo! after the discovery of a coordinated effort to compromise accounts.

Cyber Espionage Chronicles report of an attempted malware attack against the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Israeli Defense Ministry and, most of all, the discovery of an operation allegedly orchestrated by Russian hackers against Western energy interests.

Looking at the attacks motivated by Hacktivism, the Syrian Electronic Army were behind the most noticeable events.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

16-31 Jan 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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1-15 February 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are with the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks happened during the first half of February.

It is very hard to summarize these days from an Infosec perspective, considering the noticeable number of massive breaches: Kickstarter (potentially 5.6 million of records affected), Forbes (1 million records leaked), Orange (800,000 users impacted) and St. Joseph Health System (400,000 users affected) are the main examples, but they must not overshadow other ‘minor’ events such as the the attack against Bell.ca (‘only’ 40,000 users affected).

15 days in which Cybercrime and Hacktivism dangerously overlapped, ‘thanks’ mainly to the infamous Syrian Electronic Army, author of the hack against Forbes but also of several account hijacking attacks that have become their unique fingerprint, but also ‘thanks’ to the RedHack collective who, once again, targeted (directly or indirectly) the Turkish Government with three noticeable attacks.

Last but not least, the Cyber Espionage: the first half of February has brought us the discovery of “The Mask” (AKA Careto), a massive Operation targeting 31 countries around the world, but also the revelation of an alleged attack carried on by Huawei against the Indian provider BSNL and a further purported Chinese attack against some bio-medic industries in the U.S.

Finally, the Cyber War between India and Pakistan deserves a special mention, despite only defacements have been reported, the end of the fight is far from being reached.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

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16-28 February 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Here is the list of the main Cyber Attacks happened during the second half of February 2014 (Part I here). As you will soon discover, unlike the previous months, the activity in this second half of February has shown a sensible decrease both in number and in size in comparison with the previous months.

One of the few exception to this decreasing trend is  the University of Maryland, that was the victim of a cyber attack that led to the compromising of more than 300,o00 records.

Apparently even the hacktivists have slowed down their attacks with few exceptions (the Syrian Electronic Army and some sporadic actions executed by hackers affiliated to Anonymous.

Interestingly the cyber espionage front has been the more interesting with a couple of remarkable events (a cyber attack against a French aerospace engine maker and the revelation of further details concerning the Iranian attack against a US Navy Computer Network.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

16-28 Feb 2014 Cyber Attacks Timelines (more…)

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1-15 March 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are with the timeline of the main Cyber Attacks happened during the first half of March.

Even if globally the number of attacks seems to keep on its decreasing trend, one event in particular will probably be remembered in the chronicles of 2014: definitely the breach to KT Corp. in Korea (12 million customers compromised) deserves a special mention (despite this is not the only one in this first half of the month), even if, apparently, the authors have been immediately busted.

Other interesting trends include the long trail of attacks against Bitcoin Exchange sites (the equivalent of $700.000 has been vaporized by hackers in this two weeks) and an anomalous number of attacks against Universities (North Dakota, Johns Hopkins and Central Oklahoma).

Moving to hacktivism, the landscape has been predictably influenced by the events happening in Ukraine (chronicles report of several attacks in Ukraine, Russia, Poland and also a DDoS against some NATO web sites).

The temperature on the Cyber Espionage front remains high, most of all in India where a local newspaper has unveiled some details related to an operation compromising 50 computers belonging to the Defense Research and Development Organization.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

1-15 Mar 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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16-31 March 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are with the second part of the Cyber Attacks Timeline (first part here).

The prize for the most noticeable breach of the month goes in Korea, where a 31-year-old man has been arrested for infiltrating the account of 25 million users of Never, a local Internet Portal (actually it happened several months ago but was unveiled in this month). Other noticeable events include the trail of attacks against several Universities (Maryland, Auburn, Purdue, Wisconsin-Parkside), the compromising of personal information of 550,000 employees and users of Spec’s, the leak of 158,000 forum users of Boxee.tv and 95,000 users of Cerberus and, finally, a breach targeting the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Last but not least, even the infamous Operation Windigo has deserved a mention in the timeline.

Moving to Hacktivism, chronicles report of a couple of hijackings performed, as usual, by the Syrian Electronic Army, a couple of operations carried on by the Russian Cyber Command and a (probably fake) attack by someone in disguise of Anonymous Ukraine, claiming to to have leaked 7 million Russian Credit Cards. Probably a recycle of old leaks.

As usual, if you want to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012 and now 2013 (regularly updated). You may also want to have a look at the Cyber Attack Statistics, and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

16-31 Mar 2014 Cyber Attacks Timelines (more…)

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