16-30 November 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It is time for the report of the cyber landscape of the second half of November.

This month will be probably remembered for the discovery of the giant breach targeting Cupid Media and involving potentially 42 million users. However, this was not the only remarkable breach of November: chronicles report of 77,000 customers of Vodafone Island having their details leaked.

Other interesting events involve a brute-force attack to GitHub, forcing several users to change password, and yet another attack against a Bitcoin Wallet (the equivalent of $1 million stole).

Not only Cyber Criminals. Even Hacktivists were particularly active in this period: the attacks of Indonesian hackers against Australian targets continued in the second part of November, as also the mutual defacements between Pakistani and Indian crews. Last but not least, the Anonymous leaked some documents and emails allegedly belonging to the Italian Governor of Lombardy and the details of 40,000 individuals from an Israeli Job search portal.

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).16-30-november-2013-cyber-attacks-timeline

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Middle East Cyber War Timeline

Feb 19 2012: Middle East Cyber War Timeline Master Index

I tried to summarize the chain of events that is characterizing the Cyber Escalation in the Middle East. I collected the information from several sources in order to provide a detailed picture of what is happening between Israel and the Arab Countries since the initial claim of 0xOmar. Observing the evolution of the chart, the Cyber conflicts seems to follow the same rules than real wars: innocent victims, propaganda and psyops, different paths of escalation and guerrilla tactics. This Cyber Conflict in Middle East is probably crossing the line: from now the landscape will not be the same anymore.

From the initial action of 0xOmar to the Israeli reaction, passing through the declaration of Cyber Jihad (the chart is updated to Sunday, the 22nd of January), (too) many events have happened, involving different hacking crews, different countries (also some French and Canadian web sites have been defaced) and different kind of attacks. What was started as an endless chain of massive leaks seems to be evolving as isolated actions typical of guerrilla.

Follow the line of a Cyber conflict that, similarly to the real one occurring in the Middle East, appears far from being solved…

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Middle East Cyber War Timeline (Part IV)

Another week, another wave of attacks between the two cyber contenders (here: Part I, Part II, Part III).

After some mutual attacks in terms of DDoS and defacements (with a new entry from Morocco and a resounding defacement against the Tel Aviv University Security Studies Program website, the head of the National Cyber Defense Authority), this week has seen the revamping of Credit Cards leaks “thanks” to Zcompany Hacker crew, who dumped more than 200 Credit Cards belonging to Israel And United States.

Even considering this latter event, however, the timeline seems to have confirmed the descending trend, with the early actors of both parties apparently quiet inside their virtual shelters (maybe to elaborate new strategies). But in this apparently calm sky a new thunderstorm threatens the horizon: it is the Anonymous which posted a message promising a reign of terror for Israel…

If you have a look to the Middle East nations involved in the cyber conflict which made attacks or suffered attacks (depicted in the map below that does not include U.S. victim of the latest Credit Card leak and France whose Council of Jewish Institutions was hacked earlier in June), you may easily notice that the virtual geopolitics reflect nearly exactly the real ones (the dotted arrow from Iran indicates the uncertainty of the nationality of OxOmar) with the new entry of Pakistani ZHC.

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Middle East Cyber War Update (Part VII)

Updated on March 11 to include the latest cyber attacks to Israeli Websites by @CabinCr3w and Anonymous Crkvina

As reported on the last update, it looks like the Cyberwar between Israel and the Middle East (most of all Iran) has come to an apparent truce, at least from the Israeli Site. A trend confirmed also in this last period in which Israel did not perform any Cyber action, but suffered several sparse attacks (mostly defacements) and a new DDoS against AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) with a new threatening message from the Anonymous. In the same time, many other countries all over the world suffered cyber attacks in name of the so-called #OpFreePalestine. These attacks were mainly carried on by a crew called Pak Cyber Pyrates who also defaced the isreaeldefenceforces.com webiste.

Is the static position of Israel a possible prelude for an Israeli Military Action against Iran in the real space? According to a panel of experts the  chance that the United States or Israel will strike Iran in the next year is 48 percent.

But Israel and Iran are not the only unstable zones in the Middle East Cyber Space: a new cyber war front is raising in Lebanon, which has become the target of several cyber-attacks, carried on by hacktivist hacking groups stressing the need of more democracy, rather than by foreign countries.A front joined by the Anonymous who declared the start of #OpLebanon.

Last but not least, although not reported on the chart, I also found a Lebanese Cyber Army that hacked several Facebook accounts belonging to Israeli people.

At this link the complete timeline at the Middle East Cyberwar Timeline and follow @paulsparrows for the latest updates.

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Middle East Cyber War Update

Another week of Cyber War in the Middle East…

Another week in which pro Israeli hackers seem to have disappeared, and hence have apparently left the scene to Pro Palestine hackers, although not so many high-profile actions have been reported in this period. The only exception to this schema is represented by Mauritania Hacker Team who dumped 4000 login accounts from Microsoft Israel Dynamics CRM Online website. This action is particularly significant… Not because it targeted a Cloud service, and not even because it targeted a Microsoft Cloud Service, but most of all because on the wake of the multiple dumps performed by Pro Arab hackers against Israel (among which the dump to the Microsoft Cloud Service was only the latest), the Israel’s Justice Ministry has releases guidelines forbidding unnecessary collection of personal national identification numbers. This is the first time in which the aftermath of a Cyber War has direct implications on everyday life.

From this point of view the wars fought on the cyber domain are completely different from the wars fought on the real world… In the cyber battlefield the civilians are the primary targets (since they have their personal data dumped) and not collateral victims…

Read the complete timeline of the Middle East Cyber War at this link and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

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