Hacker

January 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part 2)

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timelines Cyberwar Security
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:15 mins read
Post published:February 2, 2012

Click here for part 1.

The second half of January is gone, and it is undoubtely clear that this month has been characterized by hacktivism and will be remembered for the Mega Upload shutdown. Its direct and indirect aftermaths led to an unprecedented wave of cyber attacks in terms of LOIC-Based DDoS (with a brand new self service approach we will need to get used to), defacements and more hacking initiatives against several Governments and the EU Parliament, all perpetrated under the common umbrella of the opposition to SOPA, PIPA and ACTA. These attacks overshadowed another important Cyber Event: the Middle East Cyberwar (which for the sake of clarity deserved a dedicated series of posts, here Part I and Part II) and several other major breaches (above all Dreamhost and New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric).

Chronicles also reports a cyber attack to railways, several cyber attacks to universities, a preferred target, and also of a bank robbery in South Africa which allowed the attackers to steal $6.7 million.

Do you think that cyber attacks in this month crossed the line and the Cyber Chessboard will not be the same anymore? It may be, meanwhile do not forget to follow @paulsparrows to get the latest timelines and feel free to support and improve my work with suggeastions and other meaningful events I eventually forgot to mention.

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March 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyberwar Security
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:9 mins read
Post published:March 19, 2012

The first half of March is gone, and here it is the Timeline of the main Cyber Attacks for this…

Timeline of Cyber War Between Bangladesh and India (Part II)

Post author:Paolo Passeri
Post last modified:May 24, 2015
Post category:Cyber Attacks Timelines Cyberwar Security
Post comments:1 Comment
Reading time:2 mins read
Post published:March 26, 2012

Part I: The list of Cyber Attacks Carried On by Bangladesh Hackers against India

The second part of this post covers the cyber attacks carried on by Indian hackers against Bangladesh. Apparently their number is smaller but a deeper analysis shows a sharper strategy focused on paralyzing the financial system of Bangladesh.

In this first quarter of 2012, the cyber war between the two countries went through two different phases: until the beginning of March, the two opposite factions faced themselves with sparse defacement and DDoS actions (unchained after the attacks following the India Republic Day). After March we entered the Cyber War 2.0 characterized by High Profile actions, most of all suffered by Bangladesh, that led to the takedown of the Stock Exchange and one important Bank.

Again, thanks to Catherine for collecting the data.

Of course do not forget to follow @paulsparrows for the latest updates on the (too many) Cyber Wars, being fought on the underground of our planet.

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April 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)

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:April 16, 2012

As usual, here is the list of the main cyber attacks for April 2012. A first half of the month which has been characterized by hacktivism, although the time of the resounding attacks seems so far away. Also because, after the arrest of Sabu, the law enforcement agencies (which also were targeted during this month, most of all in UK), made two further arrests of alleged hackers affiliated to the Anonymous Collective: W0rmer, member of CabinCr3w, and two possible members of the infamous collective @TeaMp0isoN.

In any case, the most important breach of the first half of the month has nothing to deal with hacktivism, targeted the health sector and occurred to Utah Department of Health with potentially 750,000 users affected. According to the Last Ponemon Study related to the cost of a breach ($194 per record) applied to the minimum number of users affected (250,000), the monetary impact could be at least $ 55 million.

Another interesting event to mention in the observed period is also the alleged attack against a Chinese Military Contractor, and the takedown of the five most important al-Qaeda forums. On the hacktivist front, it worths to mention a new hijacked call from MI6 to FBI, but also the alleged phone bombing to the same Law Enforcement Agency. Both events were performed by TeamPoison, whose two alleged members were arrested the day after.

For the sample of attacks I tried to identify: the category of the targets, the category of the attacks, and the motivations behind them. Of course this attempt must be taken with caution since in many cases the attacks did not target a single objective. Taking into account the single objectives would have been nearly impossible and prone to errors (I am doing the timeline in my free time!), so the data reported on the charts refer to the single event (and not to all the target affected in the single event).

As usual the references are placed after the jump.

By the way, SQL Injection continues to rule (the question mark indicates attacks possibly performed by SQL Injection, where the term “possibly” indicates the lack of direct evidences…).

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 @pausparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

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