School of Hacktivism

A like Anonymous

There are really few doubts, this is the most (in)famous hacking collective. There is no new day without a new resounding action. They are Anonymous. They are Legion. They do not forgive. They do not forget. Expect Them.

B like Barrett Brown

Considered one of the early members, Barrett Brown is the alleged spokesperson of Anonymous.

C like Chanology (AKA Project Chanology, AKA Operation Chanology)

A protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by Anonymous. The project (or Operation) was started in response to the Church of Scientology’s attempts to remove material from a highly publicized interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008 and was followed by DDoS attacks and other actions such as black faxes and prunk calls.

D like DDoS

Distributed Denial of Service (abbreviated DDoS) is the preferred weapon by Hackitivsts, since it does not need particular hacking skills and may also be centrally controlled (with a hive mind who define the target). The preferred tool for perpetrating DDoS attacks is LOIC, although next-gen tools are under development.

E like Encyclopædia Dramatica

A satirical open wiki, launched on December 10, 2004 and defunct on April 14 2011. It is considered one of the sources of inspiration for The Anonymous.[1]

F like Fawkes Guy AKA Fawkes Guido

Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot, a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England. His stylised mask designed by illustrator David Lloyd and used as a major plot element in the “V for Vendetta“ Comic Book, is the symbol for the Anonymous. The failure of the Gunpowder plot has been commemorated in England since 5 November 1605.

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1-15 December 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the first Cyber Attacks Timeline of December (and the last for 2014).

Of course the attention of the infosec professionals is still concentrated on the devastating cyber attack against Sony happened in November (and the world as we know it, won’t be the same again), nonetheless this first 15 days have shown some remarkable events, not least the news of a breach happened earlier this year to Sony (once again), which went unreported.

At least for once, let us start from hacktivism. The hacktivists seem to be back in action: the Anonymous have taken part, directly or indirectly to several operations motivated by the racial tensions in the US (DDoS attacks against Oakland and Ontario), the raids against the Pirate Bay (leaks of Governmental emails), and the protests against the new High Speed Train line connecting Turin and Lyon (the defacement of  Official website of the Rhône-Alpes region).

A different form of hacktivism (but the border with Cyber Warfare in this case is really blurred) hit Sands Casinos earlier this year. Bloomberg has revealed that an apparent innocuous defacement happened in February was actually the mark of a more devastating attack perpetrated by Iranian hackers, who were able to wipe out all the internal clients and servers.

The Cyber Crime landscape (again maybe it should be more correct to call it Cyber Warfare) is still dominated by the outcome of the Infamous attack to Sony. Other interesting events concern the attack to an unnamed steel industry in Germany, causing physical damages, yet another wave of DDoS attacks against Sony (again!) and XboX Live, and the alleged compromise of Ars Technica requiring the registered users to change their passwords.

Last but not least, the level of state-sponsored operations is always high: at least three of them deserve to be mentioned: Operation Cleaver (allegedly backed by Iran), the resurrection of the Red October Group (Cloud Atlas or Inception) and also the discovery that the ISIS is active also in the Cyber Space, targeting a group of Syrian activists.

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 December 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline (more…)

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