June 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)

Part I (1-15 June) at this link

From an information security perspective, the second half of June has been characterized by the hacking collective UGNAZI (and its members) and also by an individual hacker: .c0mrade AKA @OfficialComrade.

Both entities have left behind them a long trail of Cyber Attacks against different targets (in several cases the real extent of the attack is uncertain) and with different techniques, although it is likely that the UGNAZI collective will be forced to change the plans after the arrest of the group’s leader, JoshTheGod, nearly at the end of the month (27thof June), effectively they have considerably reduced the rate of their cyber attacks in the second part of the analyzed period.

On the other hand, hospitals, banks, several major airlines are only few examples of the preys fallen under the attacks carried on by .c0mrade. Plese notce that from  Cyber Crime perspective,  is also interesting to notice the High Roller Operation, a giant fraud against the banking industry, unmasked by McAfee.

Needless to say, the Cyber War front is always hot, most of all in Middle East, were several DDoS attacks targeted some Israeli institutions and, most of all, an alleged unspecified massive Cyber Attack targeted tje Islamic Republic of Iran.

The hacktitic landscape is completely different: maybe hacktivists have chosen to go on vacation since June 2012 has apparently shown a decreasing trend, in sharp contrast with an year ago, when the information security community lived one of its most troubled periods.

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 (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 timeline.

(more…)

Continue ReadingJune 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)

1-15 May 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

And here we are with our bi-weekly review of the main cyber attacks. This time is the turn of the first half of May.

Probably this month will be remembered for the huge cyber-heist against two Payment Processors, and affecting two banks (National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah PSC in the United Arab Emirates and the Bank of Muscat in Oman), which suffered a massive loss of $45 million due to an endless wave of unlimited withdrawals from their ATMs.

Other relevant actions related to Cyber-criminal operations include the massive breaches against MSI Taiwan (50,000 records affected) and most of all, the Washington state Administrative Office of the Courts (up to 160,000 SSN and 1 million driver’s license numbers).

On the other hand, the hacktivists concentrated their efforts on the so-called OpUSA (7 May), even if it looks like that most of the attacks were nuisance-level. Instead, and this is a great news, after months of intense activity, the operation Ababil come to a stop.

On the cyber war front, this month reports an unedited conflict between Taiwan and Philippines.

Last but not least, even if this attack dates back to 2007, on the Cyber-Espionage front, Bloomberg has shaken this lazy month revealing the repeated attacks by the infamous Comment Crew hackers against Qinetiq, a very critical Defense contractor. The cyber threats from the Red Dragon (real or alleged) keep on scaring the western world.

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).

May 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline Part I (more…)

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16-30 June 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It’s time for the second part of the June 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (first part here).

The last two weeks of June have been characterized by an unusual cyber activity in the Korean Peninsula. In a dramatic escalation of events (coinciding with the 63rd anniversary of the start of the Korean War), both countries have attracted the unwelcome attentions of hacktivists and (alleged) state-sponsored groups, being targeted by a massive wave of Cyber attacks, with the South suffering the worst consequences (a huge amount of records subtracted by the attackers).

On the hacktivism front, the most remarkable events involved some actions in Brazil and Africa, and the trail of attacks in Turkey that even characterized the first half of the month. The chronicles of the month also report an unsuccessful operation: the results of the so-called OpPetrol have been negligible (most of all in comparison to the huge expectations) with few nuisance-level attacks.

On the cyber crime front, the most remarkable events involved the attacks against Blizzard, that forced the company to temporarily close mobile access to its auction service, a serious breach against a Samsung service in Kazakhstan, a targeted attack against the internal network of Opera Software (aimed to steal code signing certificates) and several attacks to some DNS registrars. In particular the most serious has been perpetrated against Network Solutions, affecting nearly 5000 domains, among which LinkedIn.

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 June 2013 Cyber Atacks Timeline (more…)

Continue Reading16-30 June 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline