Carly Rae Jepsen

July 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timeline Security
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:3 mins read
Post published:July 20, 2012

Update 08/02/2012: July 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)

Although the number of attacks has considerably diminuished, the first half of July has left several high-profile attacks which deserverd huge attention, exposing in theory more than 2,000,000 individuals. Yahoo! Voice, Android Forums, Nvidia, Formspring, Billabong and ASUS are several of the well-known names that were victims of the high-profile breaches in the first two weeks of July.

World Health Organization and PBS (once again) were also illustrious victims of Cyber Attacks.

Besides these remarkable events, it looks like the actions carried on by the Law Enforcement agencies in the last period led to some results since the number of incidents looks undoubtably smaller than the previous months.

For what concerns the cyber attacks driven by hacktivism, it is particularly important to notice #OpPedoChat, still ongoing, which caused many pedophiles to be exposed, in several cases with unpredictable consequences, as in Belgium where a far-right official resigned after Anonymous’ Paedophilia Claims.

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 and 2012 (regularly updated), 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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July 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timeline Security
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:3 mins read
Post published:August 3, 2012

Click here for Part I.

The Dog Days are nearly here. Weather forecast are announcing for Italy one of the hottest summers since 2003, and the same can be said for the Infosec temperature, although, July 2012 has been very different from the same month of 2011, which was deeply characterized by hacktvism.

Instead looks like that hacktivists have partially left the scene in favor of cyber criminals who executed several high profile breaches also in the second part of the month: Maplesoft, Gamigo, KT Corporation and Dropbox are the most remarkable victims of cyber-attacks, but also other important firms, even if with different scales, have been hit by (improvised) Cyber Criminals. One example for all? Nike who suffered a loss of $80,000 by a 25-year improvised hacker, who decided that exploiting a web vulnerability was the best way to acquire professional merchandise.

But probably the prize for the most “peculiar” cyber-criminal is completely deserved by Catherine Venusto, who successfully changed her sons’ grade for 110 times between 2011 and 2012.

As far as the Hacktivism is concerned, although we were not in the same condition of one year ago (a leak every day kept security away), this month has offered the massive leak of the Australian Provider AAPT, with 40 gb of data allegedly stolen by the Anonymous.

Last but not least, a special mention for the cyber espionage campaigns, that had an unprecedented growth in this month: Israel, Iran, Japan, the European Union and Canada, are only few of the victims. Iran gained also an unwelcome record, the first nation to be hit by a malware capable of blasting PC speakers with an AC/DC song…

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 and 2012 and the related statistics (regularly updated), 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).

(more…)

List Of Hacked Celebrities Who Had (Nude) Photos Leaked

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Security
Post comments:2 Comments
Reading time:3 mins read
Post published:August 7, 2012

During Summer we always try to spend our free time in a more profitable manner, for instance reading gossip chronicles.

From this point of view, July 2012 has not been a particularly lucky month for Carly Rae Jepsen. On July the 7^th, her website has been the target of a DDoS attack by a member of the infamous collective @TheWikiBoat. During the second half of July, she has joined the (not so) exclusive club of celebrities who had compromising pictures and video stolen from their computers and mobile devices. This is not an isolated episode since celebrities have shown an insane predilection to make (possibly) XXX photos and store them with few or no precautions at all. With the consequence that it is not so uncommon that the private material gets stolen with the purpose to blackmail the victims or simply to sell it.

Unfortunately the experience has shown that, almost always, both ideas end up in a miserable failure and the photos get usually leaked, causing fans to run to their search engines in the hunt for the private snaps.

Honestly speaking, I do not understand how it feels to take photos of oneself in compromising positions (but I am not a celebrity, at least so far). For sure, if I were a celebrity I would be aware of my level of exposition and its consequent capability to attract the unwelcome attentions of stalkers (and addicted hackers). That level of exposition, alone, justifies the need to pay more attention for private material, most of all if it contains XXX shots. But maybe celebrities have not time for complex passwords…

To let you understand how often these events occur, I browsed the chronicles of the last years compiling the following gallery. Even if most of the leaks came from the so-called hacker ring targeting more than 50 celebrities, you will find many surprising (sometimes recurring) victims, before coming to the disappointing conclusion that “the leopard does not change his spots”.

I am afraid that this chart will soon need an update.

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