Middle East Cyber War Update (Part VII)

Updated on March 11 to include the latest cyber attacks to Israeli Websites by @CabinCr3w and Anonymous Crkvina

As reported on the last update, it looks like the Cyberwar between Israel and the Middle East (most of all Iran) has come to an apparent truce, at least from the Israeli Site. A trend confirmed also in this last period in which Israel did not perform any Cyber action, but suffered several sparse attacks (mostly defacements) and a new DDoS against AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) with a new threatening message from the Anonymous. In the same time, many other countries all over the world suffered cyber attacks in name of the so-called #OpFreePalestine. These attacks were mainly carried on by a crew called Pak Cyber Pyrates who also defaced the isreaeldefenceforces.com webiste.

Is the static position of Israel a possible prelude for an Israeli Military Action against Iran in the real space? According to a panel of experts the  chance that the United States or Israel will strike Iran in the next year is 48 percent.

But Israel and Iran are not the only unstable zones in the Middle East Cyber Space: a new cyber war front is raising in Lebanon, which has become the target of several cyber-attacks, carried on by hacktivist hacking groups stressing the need of more democracy, rather than by foreign countries.A front joined by the Anonymous who declared the start of #OpLebanon.

Last but not least, although not reported on the chart, I also found a Lebanese Cyber Army that hacked several Facebook accounts belonging to Israeli people.

At this link the complete timeline at the Middle East Cyberwar Timeline and follow @paulsparrows for the latest updates.

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Middle East Cyber War Timeline (Part VIII)

This last week has seen some remarkable events an undoubtable revamp of data leaks inside the Middle East Cyberwar.

Not only the infamous 0xOmar, the initiator of the Middle East Cyber War, reappeared, leaking alleged secret data from some Israeli Virtual Israeli Air Force School websites; but also the Pakistani zCompany Hacking Crew has re-entered the scene unchaining the original weapon, that is the Credit Card leak. As a matter of fact ZHC published 5,166 records containing working credit cards, usernames, emails and addresses of individual supporters of the Zionist Organisation of UK & Ireland (zionist.org.uk).

On a different front, the massive defacements of websites all over the world in support of #OpFreePalestine continued. Under the label of the same operation, the Anonymous also “doxed” several companies and individuals on pastebin.

As far as the two main contenders (Iran and Israel) are concerned, the strategies seem quite different.

Iran has shown a cyber activity culminated in the alleged attack against the BBC Persian Service. For this nation, it is also important to notice its “cyber autarky”, maybe a choice forced by the embargo, that led to the creation of an internal email service, in contrast to the traditional Gmail, Yahoo, etc. This happens few weeks after the decision to develop an internal Antivirus.

On the opposite front, Israel keeps on its apparent cyber silence. Is it the prelude for the feared military action against Iran?

If you want to be constantly updated on the Middle East Cyber War, at this link you find the complete timeline. Also follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates!

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Middle East Cyber War Update

Another week of Cyber War in the Middle East…

Another week in which pro Israeli hackers seem to have disappeared, and hence have apparently left the scene to Pro Palestine hackers, although not so many high-profile actions have been reported in this period. The only exception to this schema is represented by Mauritania Hacker Team who dumped 4000 login accounts from Microsoft Israel Dynamics CRM Online website. This action is particularly significant… Not because it targeted a Cloud service, and not even because it targeted a Microsoft Cloud Service, but most of all because on the wake of the multiple dumps performed by Pro Arab hackers against Israel (among which the dump to the Microsoft Cloud Service was only the latest), the Israel’s Justice Ministry has releases guidelines forbidding unnecessary collection of personal national identification numbers. This is the first time in which the aftermath of a Cyber War has direct implications on everyday life.

From this point of view the wars fought on the cyber domain are completely different from the wars fought on the real world… In the cyber battlefield the civilians are the primary targets (since they have their personal data dumped) and not collateral victims…

Read the complete timeline of the Middle East Cyber War at this link and follow @paulsparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.

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1-15 November 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the summary of the main cyber attacks occurred in the first half of November and reported on the news.

These fifteen days have been particularly troubled from an information security perspective, having left to the records several remarkable breaches: LoyaltyBuild, affecting potentially 1.12 million individuals, CorporateCarOnline.com (850,000 individuals), MacRumors (850,000 individuals) and, last but not least, vBulletin (860,000 users affected). A damage report which appears really devastating.

But even hacktivists have been particularly active: several operations have been carried on by the Anonymous all over the world (Italy, UK, Singapore, Japan, Philippines and Ukraine). One in particular (by Indonesian hacktivists against Australian targets) has apparently created a fracture inside the collective.

Last but not least, the chronicles report the latest hack of the Syrian Electronic Army against VICE and a new wave of attacks of Pakistani hackers against Indian targets.

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 November 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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