16-30 April 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Here’s the second part of the April cyber attacks Timeline (Part I at this link)

The most remarkable event of this period has certainly been the breach suffered by Living Social potentially exposing 50 million customers of the e-commerce website. Other illustrious victims of the month include the mobile operator DoCoMo and the online reputation firm Reputation.com.

The wake of DDoS attacks has continued even in the second part of the month: once again several U.S. banks have fallen under the blows of the Izz ad-din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters.

Like in the first  half of the month, following a consolidating trend in this 2013, the Syrian Electronic Army has continued his wave of attacks against Twitter accounts (even the FIFA has been targeted). In one case, the hijacking of the Twitter account of Associated Press, the bogus tweets related to an alleged attack against the White House, the effect has crossed the boundaries of the cyber space (the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 150 points, or about 1 percent, immediately following the tweet).

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).

April 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline Part II

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16-31 July 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

July is gone and hence it’s time, as usual, to summarize the main cyber events happened in the second half of this month (Part I here).

For a strange coincidence this month has shown an unusual number of breaches dating back to several years ago (2010-2012) and reported only now: Catch of The Day, Think W3 Limited, Paddy Power and Lasko are the organizations affected.

Looking quickly at Cyber Crime, these two weeks have brought the breach to The Wall Street Journal (by W0rm the same author of the breach to CNET), the disclosure of a failed attempt to disrupt the Nasdaq in 2010, a breach to the website of the European Central Bank, an extensive attack aimed to compromise the Tor Infrastructure, and, last bunt not least, the DHS advisory related to Backokff, a PoS Malware already compromising 600 organizations throughout the U.S.

Moving to Cyber Espionage, this period will be remembered for the Canadian allegations against China, related to a cyber attack against The National Research Council and the possible compromising three Israeli defense contractors responsible for building the “Iron Dome” missile shield program.

Israel was even under the radar of the Hacktivists, who concentrated there their efforts in support of the #OpSaveGaza operation.

If you want to have an idea of how fragile our electronic identity is inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012, 2013 and now 2014 (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 July 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline (more…)

Continue Reading16-31 July 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

1-15 May 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Here we have with the list of the most significant Cyber Attacks happened in the first half of April (according to my very own point of view).

There are few doubts about the fact that Orange is the winner of the unwelcome prize for the most noticeable breach after the theft of the information of 1.3 million users.

Other interesting events related to Cyber Crime include the breach of Bitly, the famous URL shortening service and a new heist against a virtual currency wallet (this time the victim is Doge Vault, one of the most popular online repositories for the cryptocurrency Dogecoin).

Moving to Cyber Espionage, this month reports two interesting events, the theft of Data related to the Ukraine crisis from the Belgian Foreign Ministry, and the discovery of Operation Saffron Rose, a long-term campaign against western defense contractor carried on by a team of Iranian hackers dubbed Ajax Security Team.

Last but not least, among the hacktivists, chronicles report of  a new action of the infamous Syrian Electronic Army (against four accounts of The Wall Street journal) and the usual skirmishes between Pakistani and Indian hackers (but is questionable in my opinion to determine if those events can be classified as part of a harmless cyber war or are rather mutual actions between hactivists acting on opposite sides).

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 May 2014 Cyber Attacks Timelines (more…)

Continue Reading1-15 May 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline