January 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part 2)

Click here for part 1.

The second half of January is gone, and it is undoubtely clear that this month has been characterized by hacktivism and will be remembered for the Mega Upload shutdown. Its direct and indirect aftermaths led to an unprecedented wave of cyber attacks in terms of LOIC-Based DDoS (with a brand new self service approach we will need to get used to), defacements and more hacking initiatives against several Governments and the EU Parliament, all perpetrated under the common umbrella of the opposition to SOPA, PIPA and ACTA. These attacks overshadowed another important Cyber Event: the Middle East Cyberwar (which for the sake of clarity deserved a dedicated series of posts, here Part I and Part II) and several other major breaches (above all Dreamhost and New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric).

Chronicles also reports a cyber attack to railways, several cyber attacks to universities, a preferred target, and also of a bank robbery in South Africa which allowed the attackers to steal $6.7 million.

Do you think that cyber attacks in this month crossed the line and the Cyber Chessboard will not be the same anymore? It may be, meanwhile do not forget to follow @paulsparrows to get the latest timelines and feel free to support and improve my work with suggeastions and other meaningful events I eventually forgot to mention.

(more…)

Continue ReadingJanuary 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part 2)

1-15 December 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Christmas is coming quickly, we have just passed the first half of December, and hence it’s time for the first update of the Cyber Attacks Timeline for December.

The Team GhostShell has decided to close the year with a clamorous Cyber Attack, and hence,as part of the project ProjectWhiteFox, has leaked 1.6 million of accounts from several organizations all over the world. This is the most important event for this first part of the month that apparently has shown a decreasing trend. Hacktivists are still focusing their attention (and their keyboards) to Israel, and Cyber Criminals are maybe preparing for the Christmas attacks.

However, the main events of the first half of December, are related to hacktivism, besides the above mentioned cyber attack, it worth to mention the new wave of massive DDoS attacks against US Banks (up to 60 Gbps of peak according to Arbor Networks), but also the leak of a ITU document on the future of Deep Packet Inspection and the attacks in Egypt, Mexico and India.

Last but not least: this two weeks also offered a giant attack to the famous Social Platform Tumblr and also the warning of the Switzerland’s national security agency (NDB) that a huge amount of secrets may have been leaked by a disgruntled IT Administrator.

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.

1-15 December 2012 Cyber Attack Timeline (more…)

Continue Reading1-15 December 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline

1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

So here we are with the first Cyber Attacks Timeline for 2013 covering the first half of January.

Apparently the new year has begun with an intense activity by Cyber Crooks. Hacktivists and Cyber Criminals had many time to spend in front of their keyboards during the holiday break, and as a consequence the number of breaches with more than 10.000 accounts compromised is incredibly high. WWF China, the City of Steubenville, Ohio and The German Chamber of Commerce are only three examples of institutions that suffered massive breaches during the beginning of this year.

But the massive breaches are not the only remarkable events of this period: the waves of DDoS Attacks against US banks continued (and promise to extend also in the next weeks), Kaspersky Lab discovered a new massive Cyber Espionage Campaign dubbed “Red October”, and also the Japan Farm Ministry was hit by yet another Cyber Attack, allegedly originating from China…

If this is only the beginning… 2013 promises to be pretty much troubled for system administrators…

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.

1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (more…)

Continue Reading1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

Other troubles for system administrators: March is confirming the 2013 dangerous trend with several high profile breaches against industrial, financial and governmental targets.

The first two weeks of March have begun with the breach to Evernote, and continued with (among the others) the third phase of the infamous Operation Ababil, targeting U.S. Banks and an alleged Chinese attack against the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Additional noticeable events include a wave of DDoS attacks against several Czech Republic’s targets (belonging to media, news and financial sector), a breach suffered by the NIST Vulnerability Database (unfortunately not an isolated example of the attacks against US governmental targets happened in these two weeks) and also the leak of 20,000 records from an Avast! German distributor.

Last but not least, the examined period has also confirmed the role of Twitter as the new mean to make resounding attacks against single individuals or organizations. Qatar Foundation, Saudi Aramco, and France 24 are only several of the organizations fallen victims of accounts hijacking.

Of course, these are only the main events, feel free to scroll down the list to analyze in detail what happened in these two weeks.

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).

Once again, a special thanks to Kim Guldberg AKA @bufferzone for continuously advising me about significant cyber events through the Submit Form! Much Appreciated!

1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

(more…)

Continue Reading1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline

1-15 June 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

It just looks like attackers are enjoying the beginning of the Summer, since the first half of June confirms the decreasing trends.

The controversial 2014 World Cup has revived the hacktivists, and in particular the Anonymous collective who kicked off the Operation OpWorldCup, targeting Brazilian Governmental institutions and Sponsors of the World Cup.

Looking at the Cyber Crime, the most remarkable event of the month is the extortion attempt against  Belgian and French customers of Domino’s Pizza (650,000 users affected). It is also worth to mention the wave of DDoS attacks against Feedly and Evernote, in the first case motivated by extortion, and also the compromising of a US Army database in South Korea.

Last but not least, chronicle report the details of two Cyber Espionage Operations: Operation Molerat, originating allegedly from Middle East, and yet another one from China, discovered by Crowdstrike and attributed to a group dubbed Putter Panda.

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 June 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline

(more…)

Continue Reading1-15 June 2014 Cyber Attacks Timeline