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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16-31 August 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

August is gone, and here we are with the list of the most noticeable cyber attacks occurred during the second half of the month (first part here).

This period will be probably remembered for the massive cyber attack against Community Health Systems (4.5 million records compromised), the wave of coordinated attacks targeting JPMorgan Chase and at least four other US banks, the malware targeting 51 franchised stores of UPS, and, last but not least, the mother of all breaches in Korea (220 million records containing personal information 0f 27 million people). Another noticeable event was also the coordinated DDoS attacks against Sony Entertainment Network, Xbox Live and other online gaming services.

For what concerns cyber espionage, chronicles report, among other things, the massive coordinated cyber attack against 50 Norwegian oil and energy companies, the discovery of three cyber attacks (within the past three years) against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the theft of classified information from the Malaysian agencies involved in the MH370 investigation.

Instead, nothing particularly meaningful has been reported for hacktivism: many sparse actions (mostly against direct or indirect interests of Israel) of limited impact and hence without particular consequences.

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).16-31-august-2014-cyber-attacks-timeline-v2

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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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