16-31 December 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Let’s give the welcome to this new infosec year with the first timeline of 2014 (or better the last of 2013) summarizing the main events occurred in the second half of December 2013.

With no doubt, this holiday season has been characterized by the Target breach, whose size is constantly growing (110 million the number of potential victims according to recent estimates). This massive incident has somehow shadowed another massive breached occurred in Turkey, were Russian hackers have allegedly been able to obtain 54 million citizens’ ID Data. With similar numbers, the 300.000 users potentially affected by the Cyber Attack involving Affinity Gaming appear risible.

Other considerable events include a Christmas Intrusion on a BBC server (with the author possibly selling the backdoor access on the underground) and yet another possible intrusion by Chinese hackers on a US target, specifically the Federal Election Commission.

Nothing particularly significant on the hacktivism front characterized by the consolidated “background noise” of events whose sizes are well far from the levels of the recent years.

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).

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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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