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).
Read more…
April 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics
As I do every month (unfortunately with a constantly growing delay, here are the statistics extracted from the cyber attacks timelines for April 2013.
As usual, let us begin with the Daily Trend Chart. The peak of April the 2nd seems to be quite an exception for a quiet month, showing a constant trend, except for the decrease towards the end.
Similarly to March, the Motivations Behind Attacks Chart confirms the predominance, inside the sample, of the attacks motivated by hacktivism, leading the chart with 56% (was 50% during the previous month).
And, again, similarly to March, DDoS leads the Distribution of Attack Techniques Chart with nearly 35%. SQLi ranks at number three with nearly the same value than the previous month (13.5%). It is worth to mention the rise of the cases of account hijacking, on the rise of the attacks carried on by the Syrian Electronic Army.
Again, the wave of DDoS attacks affects the Distribution Of Targets Chart, lead by Financial Targets with 32%, twice as much as the industrial sector, ranking at the second place with nearly 15%. Apparently the attention against the governmental targets is decreasing, as a result, they rank at number three with 10.7%.
As usual, please bear in mind that the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks included in my timelines. The sample does not pretend to be exhaustive but only aims to provide an high level overview of the “cyber landscape”.
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).
Related articles
- March 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics (hackmageddon.com)
- 16-30 April 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (hackmageddon.com)
- 1-15 April 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (hackmageddon.com)
16-30 April 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline
Here’s the second part of the April cyber attacks Timeline (Part I at this link)
The most remarkable event of this period has certainly been the breach suffered by Living Social potentially exposing 50 million customers of the e-commerce website. Other illustrious victims of the month include the mobile operator DoCoMo and the online reputation firm Reputation.com.
The wake of DDoS attacks has continued even in the second part of the month: once again several U.S. banks have fallen under the blows of the Izz ad-din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters.
Like in the first half of the month, following a consolidating trend in this 2013, the Syrian Electronic Army has continued his wave of attacks against Twitter accounts (even the FIFA has been targeted). In one case, the hijacking of the Twitter account of Associated Press, the bogus tweets related to an alleged attack against the White House, the effect has crossed the boundaries of the cyber space (the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 150 points, or about 1 percent, immediately following the tweet).
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 April 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline
I know, I am a little late this month. We have just entered May and I was able to publish the first part of the Timeline of April. I will try to maintain the usual rhythm and to be more punctual for the next releases.
Anyway, the first part of April has offered many interesting port with several large scale attacks and massive breaches. The first category includes the Darkleech malware against Apache, and the gigantic brute-force attack against WordPress. The second category includes the attacks against two primary Japanese portals, the FPS War Z, Scribd, Linode, and, most of all Schnucks Markets, targeting potentially 2.4 million users.
But not only Cyber Crime in this month, even the hacktivists were quite active with their OpIsrael 2 (and its controversial damage report), the wake of attacks against North Korean web sites, and even the sixth week of DDoS attacks against the U.S. Banks carried on under the so-called Operation Ababil.
Hard times 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, 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).
Read more…
March 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics
It is time to summarize the timelines of March (part I and part II) into statistics. Of course this exercise does not aim to be exhaustive but only to provide a snapshot of the current landscape.
The Daily Trend chart shows a decrease of the attacks in the second part of the month with an isolated peak on the 20th: the day of the wiper attack in Korea. Except for this the trend is clearly decreasing
Hacktivism is still on top of the Motivations Behind Attacks chart with 50% of occurrences. Same rank and a value similar to the previous month when it was at 56%. Also March confirms that Cyber Espionage campaigns are becoming more and more frequent (or at least deserve an important coverage on the chronicles). Symptom of a growing attention or simply a media hype?
The Distribution Of Attack Techniques is influenced by the Operation Ababil against U.S. Banks, that has pushed the DDoS at number one with nearly one attack above two during this month. This is very different from the previous month when SQLi led the chart with 34%. Even in this case it is important to notice the growing presence of targeted attacks on the chart (strictly related to the growing coverage of Cyber Espionage campaigns).
Last, but not least, the Distribution of Targets chart shows the financial targets at number one with nearly 30% (a clear influence of the attacks against U.S. Banks). Governmental targets are immediately behind with 25.5%. At number three a (relatively) new entry: target belonging to the news sector gain the bronze medal with the 12.4% of occurrences.
As usual, as I told before, no need to remind that the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks included in my timelines. The sample does not pretend to be exhaustive but only aims to provide an high level overview of the “cyber landscape”.
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 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).
1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics
Here are the statistics for the main cyber attacks collected during the first half or March and reported inside the corresponding Timeline.
The Daily Trend chart shows quite an heterogeneous shape, with a peak occurring on the 13th mainly due to the wave of defacements against high profiles Philippine governmental targets. Instead the wave of DDoS attacks in the Czech Republic is the cause of the peaks occurred during the 4th, the 6th and the 7th.
The Motivations Behind Attacks chart shows a revamp of Cyber Crime, at number one with the 49% of attacks (against the 31% of the previous month). However the influence of hacktivism remains equally high (48%).
The Distribution Behind Attacks is influenced by the waves of attacks in Czech Republic and by the third phase of the Operation Ababil. As a consequence the DDoS flies at the first place of the chart, slightly above the 50%, and well beyond SQLi that ranks at the second place with “only” 13.2% of occurrences.
But the effect of the wind of hacktivism does not end here. In fact the Distribution of Targets chart puts financial targets at number one with 27.5% of occurrences, immediately above governmental (26.4%) and twice as higher as news media, at number three with 14.3 of occurrences. It is interesting to note the “fall” of the targets belonging to industry, that, in the first two weeks of March, collected a “poor” 9.9% (but maybe this is one of those chart in which the smaller the value, the better it is).
I will never give up repeating that the sample must be taken very carefully and does not pretend to be exhaustive, since it refers only to discovered attacks included in the 1-15 March Cyber Attacks Timeline (the so-called tip of the iceberg). The purpose is only to provide an high level overview of the “cyber landscape”.
In any case, 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).
Related articles
- February 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics (hackmageddon.com)
- 1-15 March 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (hackmageddon.com)
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08/13/2011 - My Post on Android Malware Mentioned on Engadget.
04/14/2011 - The Article Smart Grid: L'ultima Frontiera del Cybercrime published on ICT Security Magazine May 2011.
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02/14/2011 - The Article Gears of Cyberwar published on ICT Security Magazine January 2011.
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