16-31 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

First part here: 1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

March is gone and hence it is time to analyze the events that characterized the past month.

Two events in particular gained the first pages of the magazines: the wiper malware in Korea and the DDoS attack against Spamhaus that, maybe exaggerating, has been defined the “biggest attack in history”.

But these were not the only noticeable attacks in this second part of the month: the Operation Ababil of the Izz ad-din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters against U.S. banks achieved a new phase, constantly disrupting the connectivity of several high profile financial targets, including Chase, USBank, etc.; Telenor admitted to have been hacked by high-tech spies emptying the content of executives’ personal computers, and also the Anonymous claimed to have breached the Mossad, despite there are many doubts about this last attack.

Other important events include a breach against MTV Taiwan (600,000 accounts), McDonald’s (200,000 accounts), the Turkish Ministry Of Economy (96,000 accounts), and Renault Colombia (31,000 accounts leaked).

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).

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1-16 February 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Here is the summary of the Cyber Attacks Timeline for February. A month that will probably be remembered for the “sophisticated” cyber attacks to the two main social networks: Facebook and Twitter.

But the attacks against the two major social networks were not the only remarkable events of this period. Other governmental and industrial high-profile targets have fallen under the blows of (state-sponsored) cyber criminals: the list of the governmental targets is led by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while Bit9, a primary security firm, was also targeted, leading the chart of Industrial targets.

Hacktivists have raised the bar and breached the Federal Reserve, leaking the details of 4,000 U.S. Banks executives. Similarly, the Bush family was also targeted, suffering the leak of private emails.

Even if the list is not as long as the one of January, it includes other important targets, so, scroll it down to have an idea of how fragile our data are inside the cyberspace. Also have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012, 2013, 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.1-16-february-2013-cyber-attacks-timeline1

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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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1-15 May 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are with our bi-weekly review of the main cyber attacks. This time is the turn of the first half of May.

Probably this month will be remembered for the huge cyber-heist against two Payment Processors, and affecting two banks (National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC in the United Arab Emirates and the Bank of Muscat in Oman), which suffered a massive loss of $45 million due to an endless wave of unlimited withdrawals from their ATMs.

Other relevant actions related to Cyber-criminal operations include the massive breaches against MSI Taiwan (50,000 records affected) and most of all, the Washington state Administrative Office of the Courts (up to 160,000 SSN and 1 million driver’s license numbers).

On the other hand, the hacktivists concentrated their efforts on the so-called OpUSA (7 May), even if it looks like that most of the attacks were nuisance-level. Instead, and this is a great news, after months of intense activity, the operation Ababil come to a stop.

On the cyber war front, this month reports an unedited conflict between Taiwan and Philippines.

Last but not least, even if this attack dates back to 2007, on the Cyber-Espionage front, Bloomberg has shaken this lazy month revealing the repeated attacks by the infamous Comment Crew hackers against Qinetiq, a very critical Defense contractor. The cyber threats from the Red Dragon (real or alleged) keep on scaring the western world.

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).

May 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline Part I (more…)

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16-30 June 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the second part of the June 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (first part here).

The last two weeks of June have been characterized by an unusual cyber activity in the Korean Peninsula. In a dramatic escalation of events (coinciding with the 63rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War), both countries have attracted the unwelcome attentions of hacktivists and (alleged) state-sponsored groups, being targeted by a massive wave of Cyber attacks, with the South suffering the worst consequences (a huge amount of records subtracted by the attackers).

On the hacktivism front, the most remarkable events involved some actions in Brazil and Africa, and the trail of attacks in Turkey that even characterized the first half of the month. The chronicles of the month also report an unsuccessful operation: the results of the so-called OpPetrol have been negligible (most of all in comparison to the huge expectations) with few nuisance-level attacks.

On the cyber crime front, the most remarkable events involved the attacks against Blizzard, that forced the company to temporarily close mobile access to its auction service, a serious breach against a Samsung service in Kazakhstan, a targeted attack against the internal network of Opera Software (aimed to steal code signing certificates) and several attacks to some DNS registrars. In particular the most serious has been perpetrated against Network Solutions, affecting nearly 5000 domains, among which LinkedIn.

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).

16-31 June 2013 Cyber Atacks Timeline (more…)

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1-15 January 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the Cyber Attacks Timeline for the first half of January 2014. I wish we had a better start for this Infosec year. Not even a month has passed (actually this timeline covers the first two weeks) and we have already seen several massive breaches (Snapchat) and other resounding events, maybe less relevant from a mere numeric perspective, but equally meaningful for the high profile of the victims involved (Microsoft).

Besides Snapchat, other important organizations have been targeted by Cyber crooks with very bad consequences: World Poker Tour (175,333), Staysure (93,000 individuals involved) and OpenSUSE (79,500 victims) are the most noticeable examples. On the cyber crime front other meaningful events include a wave of attacks against Video Games industries, and the hacking of Yahoo advertise network, infecting, potentially 27,000 users per hour.

Hacktivists of the Syrian Electronic Army are back with the result that even Microsoft is now part of the list of their victims (however their web site was also hacked in the same period). Other hacktivists very active in the same period include the infamous RedHack collective.

Last but not least, the control room of the Nuclear Plant of Monju in Japan was found infected with a malware capable of allegedly exfiltrate 42,000 emails.

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 Jan 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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