1-15 November 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

The first half of November is gone, so it’s time for the list of the main cyber attacks occurred during these fifteen days.

Confirming the trend of the last months, the activity has been quite sustained. For sure, the most remarkable attack has targeted the Turkish branch of HSBC, and has affected 2.7 million customers, whose credit cards have been compromised (and apparently the bank has decided not to issue new cards for the impacted users).

Again the operations related to cyber espionage have played an important role: some new campaigns have come to light (for instance Darkhotel), and also several noticeable attacks have been discovered, like the one against the United States Postal Service (600,000 users affected) or the one against the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Even hacktivists have been quite active: the RedHack collective has reemerged from several months in stealth mode (they claim to have deleted 650,000 USD worth 0f electricity power debt), and some hackers claiming to be affiliated to the Anonymous collective have performed similar operations in Italy (in parallel with the delicate social and economical period) and the Philippines.

If you want to have an idea of how fragile our electronic identity is inside the cyberspace, have a look at the timelines of the main Cyber Attacks in 2011, 2012, 2013 and now 2014 (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-november-2014-cyber-attacks-timeline

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16-30 September 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for analyzing the main cyber Attacks happened in September.

From an information security perspective, the second half of September has been characterized by the discovery of three operations related to targeted attacks against different countries and sectors. Two in particular, DeputyDog and IceFrog, targeting have a common denominator: Japan.

In the same period. despite the numerous members brought to court, the Anonymous have continued their operations all over the World (Cambodia and New Zealand have been the hottest fronts).

Considering Cyber Crime, this month has raised the attention to the risks posed by fake KVM switches. With a similar device, a gang of cyber-thieves was able to steal £1.3 M from a Barclays Computer. Unfortunately for them this magic box was not able to avoid them to get busted (in any case they deserved a mention in the timeline). For sure you will remember that a similar cyber-plot has also been tried against Santander.

On the cyber warfare front, the temperature of the virtual battlefield among India, Pakistan and Bangladesh remains quite hot. On the other side of the World, US officials have unveiled an escalation of cyber attacks from Iran. Curiously this admission was done few days before Mojtaba Ahmad, the head of Iran’s cyber warfare programme, has been shot dead (although Iranian officials are denying similar claims).

Last but not least the Belgium Government has admitted to have been the victim of a targeted attack. Unfortunately, in this case the suspects are directed to NSA!

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.16-30-september-2013-cyber-attacks-timeline

Also, feel free to submit remarkable incidents that in your opinion deserve to be included in the timelines (and charts).

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15-31 May 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are with the second part of the Cyber Attacks Timeline for May (first part here).

The second half of the month has shown an unusual activity with several high-profile breaches motivated by Cyber-Crime or Hacktivism, but also with the disclosure of massive Cyber-Espionage operations.

The unwelcome prize for the “Breach of the Month” is for Yahoo! Japan, that suffered the possible compromising of 22 million users (but in general this was an hard month for the Far East considering that also Groupon Taiwan suffered an illegitimate attempt to access the data of its 4.1 million of customers).

On the cyber-espionage front, the leading role is for the Chinese cyber army, accused of compromising the secret plans of advanced weapons systems from the U.S. and the secret plans for the new headquarter of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.

On the Hacktivism front, this month has been particularly troubled for the South African Police, whose web site has been hacked with the compromising of 16,000 individuals, including 15,700 whistle-bowlers.

Other noticeable events include the unauthorized access against the well known open source CMS Drupal (causing the reset of 1 million of passwords), the trail of hijacked Twitter accounts by the Syrian Electronic Army and also an unprecedented wave of attacks against targets belonging to Automotive.

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-ii1

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December 2011 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)

This infamous 2011 is nearly gone and here it is the last post for this year concerning the 2011 Cyber Attacks Timeline. As you will soon see from an infosec perspective this month has been characterized by two main events: the LulzXmas with its terrible Stratfor hack (whose effects are still ongoing with the recent release of 860,000 accounts), and an unprecented wave of breaches in China which led to the dump of nearly 88 million of users for a theoretical cost of nearly $19 million (yes the Sony brech is close). For the rest an endless cyberwar between India and Pakistan, some hactivism and (unfortunately) the usual amounts of “minor” breaches and defacement. After the page break you find all the references.

Last but not least… This post is my very personal way to wish you a happy new infosec year.

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February 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)

February 2012 brings a new domain for my blog (it’s just a hackmaggedon) and confirms the trend of January with a constant and unprecedented increase in number and complexity of the events. Driven by the echo of the ACTA movement, the Anonymous have performed a massive wave of attacks, resuming the old habits of targeting Law Enforcement agencies. From this point of view, this month has registered several remarkable events among which the hacking of a conf call between the FBI and Scotland Yard and the takedown of the Homeland Security and the CIA Web sites.

The Hacktivism front has been very hot as well, with attacks in Europe and Syria (with the presidential e-mail hacked) and even against United Nations (once again) and NASDAQ Stock Exchange.

Scroll down the list and enjoy to discover the (too) many illustrious victims including Intel, Microsoft, Foxconn and Philips. After the jump you find all the references and do not forget to follow @paulsparrows for the latest updates. Also have a look to the Middle East Cyberwar Timeline, and the master indexes for 2011 and 2012 Cyber Attacks.

Addendum: of course it is impossible to keep count of the huge amount of sites attacked or defaced as an aftermath of the Anti ACTA movements. In any case I suggest you a couple of links that mat be really helpful:

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Timeline Of Cyber War Between Bangladesh and India

Update 03/26/12: List of Cyber Attacks Carried on by Pro-India Hackers against Bangladesh

Several days ago I tweeted a request of help to my tweeps for building a timeline of India and Bangladesh Cyber War Timeline.

Unexpectedly the day after I received a complete and detailed timeline from Catherine Anita. I was nearly risking to loose it since my Gmail account had marked the message as spam. As I do not completely trust the antispam engines and regularly check my Spam folder, fortunately I was able to retrieve her e-mail and the precious content.

Catherine did a complete review that I formatted according to my consolidated model, adding a couple of events for the last days.

Since the timeline of the mutual Cyber Attacks  is quite long, I decided to divide it into two parts, the first one covering the cyber attacks carried on by pro-Bangladesh hacking crews against India (I used a rigorous alphabetical Order). Expect for tomorrow the update with attacks carried on from the other side.

As usual after the Jump you 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 (regularly updated), and follow @pausparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

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

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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July 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)

Update 08/02/2012: July 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)

Although the number of attacks has considerably diminuished, the first half of July has left several high-profile attacks which deserverd huge attention, exposing in theory more than 2,000,000 individuals. Yahoo! Voice, Android Forums, Nvidia, Formspring, Billabong and ASUS are several of the well-known names that were victims of the high-profile breaches in the first two weeks of July.

World Health Organization and PBS (once again) were also illustrious victims of Cyber Attacks.

Besides these remarkable events, it looks like the actions carried on by the Law Enforcement agencies in the last period led to some results since the number of incidents looks undoubtably smaller than the previous months.

For what concerns the cyber attacks driven by hacktivism, it is particularly important to notice #OpPedoChat, still ongoing, which caused many pedophiles to be exposed, in several cases with unpredictable consequences, as in Belgium where a far-right official resigned after Anonymous’ Paedophilia Claims.

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 @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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Continue ReadingJuly 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)