Citigroup

16-30 September 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timelines Security
Post comments:2 Comments
Reading time:8 mins read
Post published:October 4, 2012

Part One with 1-15 September 201 Timeline Here.

September is over and it’s time to analyze this month from an Information Security perspective with the second part of the Cyber Attack Timeline.

Probably this month will be remembered for the massive outage of six U.S. Banks (Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo and PNC ) caused by a wave of DDoS attack carried on by alleged Muslim hackers in retaliation for the infamous movie (maybe this term is exaggerated) “The Innocence of Muslims”.

China has confirmed its intense activity inside the Cyber space. Alleged (state-sponsored?) Chinese hackers were allegedly behind the attack to Telvent, whose project files of its core product OASyS SCADA were stolen after a breach, and also behind a thwarted spear-phishing cyber attack against the White House.

Adobe suffered a high-profile breach which caused a build server to be compromised with the consequent theft of a certificate key used to sign two malware strains found on the wild (with the consequent necessary revoke of the compromised key affecting approximately 1,100 files).

Last but not least, the Hacktivism fever has apparently dropped. September has offered some attacks on the wake of the #OpFreeAssange campaign, and a new wave of attacks at the end of the month after the global protests set for September, the 29^th, under the hashtag of #29s.

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).

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October 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timelines Security
Post comments:0 Comments
Reading time:8 mins read
Post published:November 2, 2012

Click here for the first part covering the Cyber Attacks from 1 to 15 October 2012.

Here is the timeline for the main Cyber Attacks in October 2012. A month that has been characterized by hacktivism and also by several remarkable cyber crime operations.

For sure the next days will be hard for taxpayers of South Carolina, whose Department of Revenue has been targeted by foreign hackers able to access records of 3.6 million of individuals. But hard days are going to come also for banks: not only the trail of DDoS attack against U.S. Banks has continued even in the second half of the month (although different groups took credit for them), but also, on the cyber crime front, Citigroup has lost 1 million of bucks because of a loophole exploited by a ring of 13 individuals. Different motivations, same lesson: bank security needs a dramatic improvement.

Moving to hactkivism, nothing new under the sun. The pale sun of October has enlightened several operations targeting governments (Greece and Italy above all, to reflect the delicate situation of these two countries) and organization all over the world…

As usual after the jump you will find all the references.

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…)

16-31 December 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timelines Security
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:7 mins read
Post published:January 7, 2013

The year is gone, and here it is the last Cyber Attack Timeline for 2012 (first part here).

The most important cyber-events of this second part of December can be considered: the third phase of the operation Ababil carried on by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters against U.S. Banks, the attacks of the Anonymous collective against the Westboro Baptist Church, and, last but not least the Cyberwar echoes coming from Iran.

The wave of DDoS attacks carried on by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has taken down Six U.S. Banks under the fists of DDoS attacks apparently unstoppable. Instead the Anonymous seem to have changed tactic in their personal fight against the Westboro Baptist Church, they did not limit to DDoS the church’s website, but also performed a couple of Twitter account takeover against some key persons (with the collaboration of UGNazi members).

Instead, on the Cyberwar front, Iran confirms to be a danger zone, with some reports of a new Wiper and a simil-Stuxnet malware (even if this second news has been downplayed in a second moment.

Other noticeable news include an alleged breach to Yahoo!, a massive breach against a Chinese HP domain and a strange, controversial breach against Verizon FiOS (with data apparently leaked six months ago).

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). To do so, you can use this form.

(more…)

Fortune 500 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timelines Security
Post comments:3 Comments
Reading time:7 mins read
Post published:November 25, 2014

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.

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