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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16-31 August 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

August is gone (and unfortunately the Summer is also reaching the end), so it is time to analyze what happened in the Cyber Space during the second half of this month.

Apparently the hacktivism has been the most influencing factor of the last two weeks on the wake of the sad events happening in Syria, which also influenced the Cyber Space from both sides (loyalists represented by the Syrian Electronic Army and rebels represented by the Anonymous). Other events influencing the landscape include the protests in Turkey, Colombia, Gabon and (marginally) Egypt, which also had some echoes in the Cyber Space.

On the Cyber Crime front the chronicles report the breaches against the RPG League of Legends (million of users theoretically at risk), the Estate Agent Foxtons (10,000 records allegedly compromised) and Pizza Hut Spain and Malta (7,000 records leaked) and a controversial attack to Twitter (nearly 18,000 accounts leaked purportedly belonging to Turkish users).

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).

16-31 August 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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1-15 July 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the first cyber attacks timeline of July reporting the main cyber events happened (or discovered) during the first half of the month.

In a short summary: if even the number of recorded attacks remains moderate, the most important events of this period are related to Cyber Espionage: eight sophisticated campaigns have been discovered, a number remarkably high for this category.

On the cyber crime front, the most important event of this period is undoubtedly the massive attacks against Boleto, the Brazilian payment system ($ 3.5 billion is the amount of money stolen by the criminals), but also the purported leak of CNET’s database (subsequently offered on sale by the criminals at the symbolic price of 1 Bitcoin) deserves a special mention. Also the African continent is on the spot with the discovery of a repeated fraud against a couple of Nigerian banks.

Nothing particularly remarkable by hacktivists, with the partial exception of the Syrian Electronic Army, back with the Specialty of the House (the account hijacking, this time against the official Twitter account of the Israel Defence Force). The hacktivistic landscape also offered some attacks against Israel, related to the events in Gaza. Nothing particularly relevant so far, but everything suggests that the number of these attacks will dramatically increase in the next timeline.

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).

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1-15 December 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Maybe hackers are feeling the Christmas atmosphere since this first half of December has recorded a minor number of attacks in comparison with the previous months. However considering merely the number of attacks to evaluate the cyber landscape could bring to wrong conclusions since, even if in absolute terms the number of attacks has experienced a decrease, in several cases the amount of affected users has been really considerable.

This is the case, for instance, of the 20 million of records leaked in China (and found on WeChat) or the 2.4 million of students and employees of Maricopa Community College compromised in an Aprl Security Breach.

It is really curious to notice that in (too) many cases the breaches have been notified several months later. As also happened for JP Morgan Chase, who also had 456,000 owners of prepaid cash cards compromised in July and notified only in December.

Concerning Cyber Espionage, chronicles report of an alleged Chinese Cyber Attack during the 2013 G8 Summit in Russia, while hacktivists were constantly active in Ukraine, Turkey, India, Syria (indirectly) and, a new Entry for December, Angola.

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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16-31 March 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

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

The prize for the most noticeable breach of the month goes in Korea, where a 31-year-old man has been arrested for infiltrating the account of 25 million users of Never, a local Internet Portal (actually it happened several months ago but was unveiled in this month). Other noticeable events include the trail of attacks against several Universities (Maryland, Auburn, Purdue, Wisconsin-Parkside), the compromising of personal information of 550,000 employees and users of Spec’s, the leak of 158,000 forum users of Boxee.tv and 95,000 users of Cerberus and, finally, a breach targeting the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Last but not least, even the infamous Operation Windigo has deserved a mention in the timeline.

Moving to Hacktivism, chronicles report of a couple of hijackings performed, as usual, by the Syrian Electronic Army, a couple of operations carried on by the Russian Cyber Command and a (probably fake) attack by someone in disguise of Anonymous Ukraine, claiming to to have leaked 7 million Russian Credit Cards. Probably a recycle of old leaks.

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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16-30 April 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the report of the cyber activity in April. As usual this post summarizes the main events between 16 and 30 April, whereas the first part covering the attacks between 1 and 15 April 2014 can be found here (ok, actually there’s one attack I had to include in this timeline, dated 10 April).

Apparently this second half has shown a decreasing trend (who knows, maybe the Easter has brought good intentions), nonetheless there have been some noticeable events such as the breach to AOL Mail affecting potentially 50 million users, the breach to Eircom and the interesting trend of attacks against educational institutions (Universities of Virginia, Iowa, North Carolina Wilmington).

In this general decreasing trend, even the attacks motivated by hacktivism have shown a consistent reduction in volume and impact (the Syrian Electronic Army has admitted to be in vacation).

Nothing else of particularly significant to mention but the continual cyber skirmishes between India and Pakistan. Although interesting from an analytic  perspective, the attacks were ‘limited’ to defacements, and hence the overall impact was modest.

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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