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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1-15 September 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

This month will be probably remembered for the Home Depot breach. Yet another one caused by the same POS malware family that hit Target, with a similar dramatic extension: unfortunately the retailer believes that 56 million of credit cards could have been compromised in this case. After such a similar gigantic breach there is not so much to add as far as Cyber Crime is concerned, as it overshadowed all the rest.

In regards of Hacktivism, this has been a terrible month for Pakistan, which has attracted the unwelcome attentions of hacktivists protesting against the corruption of the government. As a consequence dozens of government sites have been bombarded with DDOS attacks, (with few cases of defacements and leaks).

Nothing particularly important to mention for Cyber Espionage. After the spree of the past months, maybe is time for a break.

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-september-2014-cyber-attacks-timeline1

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16-31 October 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are we the second part of the October 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (first part here).

It’s interesting to notice how sophisticated cyber attacks are characterizing the final part of this 2013. The second timeline of October reports at least three remarkable cases: Belgacom (once again), the Finland’s Foreign Ministry and a wave of spear phishing against several targets belonging to Israeli Industries in the defense and security sector

Other noticeable events include the compromising of some servers belonging to php.net, the breach to the online database MongoHQ, and also a breach involving NeoGaf, a popular video games forum, targeting potentially 114,000 users.

The latter is the only remarkable breach (at least from a numerical perspective) of this second half of October, in the same period in which new revelations indicate that the number of victims of the infamous Adobe breach occurred in the first part of this month appears 12 times greater than initially estimated (38M users).

For the rest, the summary of the month is closed by the usual background of hacktivism, a growing phenomenon that is showing multiple different “flavors” and hence is no more characterized by the only infamous Anonymous collective.

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 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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1-15 September 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

So unfortunately the Summer is nearly gone, but, despite the sadness for the beautiful season fading away, here we are with the usual analysis of what’s happened in September from a Security Information perspective.

The main event for the first half of September is the massive attack against Vodafone Germany, potentially compromising more than 2 million customer records. Actually it was very hard to declare a main event, since even Belgacom performed was on the infosec news, unleashing some information related to a targeted attack, it was victim of. Always on the Cyber Crime front, it’s also worth to mention the failed (luckily) attack against Santander.

Nothing new under the Hacktivism front, that offered a minor revamp of the Syrian Electronic Army, despite the claims of them being dox’ed, some events in Turkey, where the cyber temperature remains hot despite the Summer fading away, and again some small attacks related to Syria and the NSA affair.

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 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

First part here: 1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

March is gone and hence it is time to analyze the events that characterized the past month.

Two events in particular gained the first pages of the magazines: the wiper malware in Korea and the DDoS attack against Spamhaus that, maybe exaggerating, has been defined the “biggest attack in history”.

But these were not the only noticeable attacks in this second part of the month: the Operation Ababil of the Izz ad-din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters against U.S. banks achieved a new phase, constantly disrupting the connectivity of several high profile financial targets, including Chase, USBank, etc.; Telenor admitted to have been hacked by high-tech spies emptying the content of executives’ personal computers, and also the Anonymous claimed to have breached the Mossad, despite there are many doubts about this last attack.

Other important events include a breach against MTV Taiwan (600,000 accounts), McDonald’s (200,000 accounts), the Turkish Ministry Of Economy (96,000 accounts), and Renault Colombia (31,000 accounts leaked).

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 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.16-31-january-2013-cyber-attacks-timeline

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16 – 31 August 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Here the first part with the timeline from 1 to 15 August 2012.

Here we are with the second part of the August 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline. A second part of the month that has been characterized by hacktivism, most of all because of the so-called OperationFreeAssange, which has targeted many high-profile websites.

Among the targets of the month, Philips has been particularly “unlucky”. The Dutch giant has been the victim of three Cyber Attacks, even if there are several doubts about the authenticity of the hacks.

But maybe the biggest operation of the month is the #ProjectHellFire, carried on by the collective @TeamGhostShell, that has unleashed something as 1 million of accounts belonging to different sectors (banks, government agencies, consulting firms, law enforcement and the CIA). And the group promises new action for this Fall and Winter.

The Middle East confirms to be very hot, with a new Cyber Attack, probably another occurrence of Shamoon, targeting RasGas, yet another Oil Company.

Just one note: of course it is impossible to track all the targets of the #OpFreeAssange. You can find a complete list at cyberwarnews.info.

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).

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1-15 September 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Here it is the usual compilation for the Cyber Attacks in the first half of September, a period which has apparently confirmed the revamping of hacktivism seen in August.

Several operations such as #OpFreeAssange (in support of Julian Assange), #OpTPB2 against the arrest of The Pirate Bay Co-Founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and #OpIndipendencia in Mexico have characterized the first half of September. Curiously the hacktivists have also characterized this period for a couple of controversial events: the alleged leak of 1 million of UDIDs from FBI (later proven to be fake) and the alleged attack to GoDaddy (later proven to be a network issue, that is the reason why I not even mentioned it in this timeline). Other actions motivated by hacktivists have been carried on by Pro-Syrian hackers.

From a Cyber Crime perspective, there are two events particularly interesting (even if well different): the alleged leak of Mitt Romney’s tax returns and yet another breach against a Bitcoin Exchange (Bitfloor), worthing the equivalent of 250,000 USD which forced the operator to suspend the operations.

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).

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