Read more about the article July 2018 Cyber Attacks Statistics

July 2018 Cyber Attacks Statistics

I have just published the second timeline of July, and now I can finally post the statistics for the same month. Let's start saying that this month was surprisingly rich in terms of events (I collected 130 records vs. 96 in June), maybe the crooks wanted to complete their home works before going to vacation.

Continue ReadingJuly 2018 Cyber Attacks Statistics

January 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part 1)

Click here for part 2.

New year, new Cyber Attacks Timeline. Let us start our Information Security Travel in 2012 with the chart of the attacks occurred in the first fifteen days of January. This month has been characterized so far by the leak of Symantec Source Code and the strange story of alleged Cyber Espionage revolving around it. But this was not the only remarkable event: chronicles tell the endless Cyber-war between Israel and a Saudi Hacker (and more in general the Arab World), but also a revamped activity of the Anonymous against SOPA (with peak in Finland). The end of the month has also reserved several remarkable events (such as the breaches to T-Mobile and Zappos, the latter affecting potentially 24,000,000 of users). In general this has been a very active period. For 2012 this is only the beginning, and if a good beginning makes a good ending, there is little to be quiet…

Browse the chart and follows @paulsparrows to be updated on a biweekly basis. As usual after the jump you will find all the references. Feel free to report wrong/missing links or attacks.

(more…)

Continue ReadingJanuary 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part 1)

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…

(more…)

Continue ReadingMiddle East Cyber War Timeline

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.

(more…)

Continue ReadingMiddle East Cyber War Timeline (Part IV)

Middle East Cyber War Timeline (Part 5)

Click here for the Middle East Cyber War Master Index with the Complete Timeline.

This week of Cyber War on the Middle East front, has shown a slight change on the Cyber Conflict trend. For the first time since January, psyops have deserved a primary role, maybe on the wake of the video released by the Anonymous against Israel one week ago. Not only the Jerusalem Post calls the video into question, but also argues that it may have been forged by Iran, identifying a state sponsored impersonation behind the entry of Anonymous in this cyber war.

But this has not been the only psyops event as an alleged message from Mossad to the Anonymous has appeared on pastebin, whose beginning sounds like a dark warning: If you want to be a hero start with saving your own lives. Although there are many doubts on its truthfulness, it deserves a particular attention since outlines a new age on psyops, what I call “pastebin psyops”.

But a war is not made only of psyops, so this week has also seen more hostile actions, among which the most remarkable one has been the leak of 300,000 accounts from Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing. This action had been preannounced by a wave of attacks on primary Israeli sites (which targeted also the PM site), and most of all, has been carried on by 0xOmar, the absolute initiator of this cyber conflict.

Palestine has been targeted as well, and it is really interesting to read under this perspective a statement by Ammar al-Ikir, the head of Paltel, the Palestinian telecommunications provider according to whom cyber attacks on Palestinian websites and internet servers have escalated since Palestine joined UNESCO.

On the Iranian front chronicle report of a failed cyber attacks againstPress TV, Iran’s English-language 24-hour news channel and most of all of a controversial statement by Gholam Reza Jalali, a senior Iranian military official in charge of head of the Iranian Cyber Intelligence, according to whom the country’s nuclear facilities have finally been made immune to cyber attacks. And it is not a coincidence that in this week Iran has kicked off the first national conference on Cyber Defense. A matter that deserves a special attention by Tehran because of the growing number of attacks on Iran’s cyber space by US and Israel. On the other hand, Israel did a similar move one month ago, at very early stage of the cyber conflict.

(more…)

Continue ReadingMiddle East Cyber War Timeline (Part 5)