2011 CyberAttacks Timeline
Update June 29: 2011 Cyber Attacks (and Cyber Costs) Timeline (Updated) I found this interesting graph from an original Thomson…
2011 Cyber Attacks (and Cyber Costs) Timeline (Updated)
As already suggested, I considered the original 2011 Cyber Attacks Timeline graph by Thomson Reuters not enough complete since it…
16-30 November 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline
It is time for the report of the cyber landscape of the second half of November.
This month will be probably remembered for the discovery of the giant breach targeting Cupid Media and involving potentially 42 million users. However, this was not the only remarkable breach of November: chronicles report of 77,000 customers of Vodafone Island having their details leaked.
Other interesting events involve a brute-force attack to GitHub, forcing several users to change password, and yet another attack against a Bitcoin Wallet (the equivalent of $1 million stole).
Not only Cyber Criminals. Even Hacktivists were particularly active in this period: the attacks of Indonesian hackers against Australian targets continued in the second part of November, as also the mutual defacements between Pakistani and Indian crews. Last but not least, the Anonymous leaked some documents and emails allegedly belonging to the Italian Governor of Lombardy and the details of 40,000 individuals from an Israeli Job search portal.
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 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 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline
Two Weeks Living Dangerously! I have no other words to describe this second half of January (first two weeks here) that has shown an unprecedented level of attacks! And if a good day starts with the morning, this will be a very troubled year from an information security perspective.
Not only the peaks of DDoS attacks against the US Banks have reached an unstoppable peak, but, most of all, at the end of the month details have been unveiled about a massive cyber-espionage campaign allegedly orchestrated by Chinese hackers against some major US media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Bloomberg News.
A very very long list of targets this month, with some high profile victims such as the U.S. Sentencing Commission, whose web site has been hacked twice and turned into an Asteroid game, but also Renault Argentina that suffered 37,000 accounts leaked.
To summarize this month is really impossible, you just have to scroll down the timeline to realize the hacking spree in this January 2013.
If this trend continues, I will have to decrease the frequency of publication…
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 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.
One Year Of Lulz (Part I)
Update December 26: 2011 is nearly gone and hence, here it is One Year Of Lulz (Part II)
This month I am a little late for the December Cyber Attacks Timeline. In the meantime, I decided to collect on a single table the main Cyber Attacks for this unforgettable year.
In this post I cover the first half (more or less), ranging from January to July 2011. This period has seen the infamous RSA Breach, the huge Sony and Epsilon breaches, the rise and fall of the LulzSec Group and the beginning of the hot summer of Anonymous agsainst the Law Enforcement Agencies and Cyber Contractors. Korea was also affected by a huge breach. The total cost of all the breaches occurred inthis period (computed with Ponemon Institute’s estimates according to which the cost of a single record is around 214$) is more than 25 billion USD.
As usual after the page break you find all the references.
December 2011 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)
As usual, here it is my compilation of December Cyber Attacks.
It looks like that Christmas approaching is not stopping hackers who targeted a growing number of organizations including several security firms (Kaspersky, Nod 32 and Bitdefender) even if in secondary domains and with “simple” defacements.
Cyber chronicles report of Gemnet, another Certification Authority Breached in Holland (is the 12th security incident targeting CAs in 2011) and several massive data breaches targeting Finland (the fifth this year, affecting 16,000 users), online gambling (UB.com affecting 3.5 million of users), Telco (Telstra, affecting 70,000 users), and gaming, after the well known attacks to Sony, Sega and Nintendo, with Square Enix, which suffered a huge attacks compromising 1,800,000 users (even if it looks like no personal data were affected).
Online Payment services were also targeted by Cybercrookers: a Visa East European processor has been hit by a security breach, but also four Romanian home made hackers have been arrested for a massive credit card fraud affecting 200 restaurants for a total of 80,000 customers who had their data stolen.
As usual, hacktivism was one of the main trends for this first half of the month, which started with a resounding hacking to a Web Server belonging to ACNUR (United Nations Refugees Agency) leaking more than 200 credentials including the one belonging to President Mr. Barack Obama.
But from a mere hactvism perspective, Elections in Russia have been the main trigger as they indirectly generated several cyber events: not only during the election day, in which three web sites (a watchdog and two independent news agencies) were taken down by DDoS attacks, but also in the immediately following days, when a botnet flooded Twitter with Pro Kremlin hashtags, and an independent forum was also taken down by a further DDoS attacks. A trail of events which set a very dangerous precent.
Besides the ACNUR Hack, the Anonymous were also in the spotlight (a quite common occurrence this year) with some sparse attacks targeting several governments including in particular Brazil, inside what is called #OpAmazonia.
Even if not confirmed, it looks like that Anonymous Finland might somehow be related to the above mentioned breach occurred in Finland.
Other interesting events occurred in the first two weeks of December: the 0-day vulnerability affecting Adobe products, immediately exploited by hackers to carry on tailored phishing campaigns and most of hall, a targeted attack to a contractor, Lockheed Martin, but also another occurrence of DNS Cache Poisoning targeting the Republic of Congo domains of Google, Microsoft, Samsung and others.
Last but not least, the controversial GPS Spoofing, which allegedly allowed Iran to capture a U.S. Drone, even the GPS Spoofing on its own does not completely solve the mistery of the capture.
Other victims of the month include Norwich Airport, Coca Cola, and another Law Enforcement Agency (clearusa.org), which is currently unaivalable.
As usual after the page break you find all the references.
One Year Of Lulz (Part II)
Christmas has just gone and here it is my personal way to wish you a Happy New Year: the second part of my personal chart (first part here) of Main 2011 Cyber Attacks covering the time window from August to November 2011 (December is not yet finished, and featuring remarkable events, so expect an update very soon). This memorable year is nearly over and is time, if you feel nostalgic, to scroll down the second part of the list to review the main Cyber Events that contributed, in my opinion, to change the landscape and the rules of the (information security) game. Many events in this period among whom, IMHO, the most noticeable is the one carried on against Diginotar. Since then our trust in conventional authentication models is not (and will not be) the same anymore.
Of course this is my personal selection. Suggestions are well accepted and if you need more details about the cyber events in 2011, feel free to consult my 2011 Cyber Attacks Master Index. As usual after the page break you find all the references…
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.
What Security Vendors Said One Year Ago…
I did not resist, so after publishing the summary of Security Predictions for 2012, I checked out what security vendors…