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May 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)
Update June 4 2012: May 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)
As usual here it is the timeline of the Main Cyber Attacks occurred in May (at least according to my evaluation criteria).
This first half of the month has seen the arrival of a new hacking collective, “The Unknowns”, who has performed an impressive trail of attacks during the first days of May, targeting Space Agencies, Universities, and several other organizations. Although these events appear to be closer to cyber crime actions rather than hactivistim-driven attacks, they have not been the most remarkable ones of these days: as a matter of fact chronicles report of a massive breach at the Hangzhou Dianzi University, targeting approximately 150.000 acccounts.
As far as hacktivism is concerned, this first half of May has confirmed the constant trend of DDoS attacks targeting high profile websites such as SOCA and CIA (once again) and the Supreme Court in retaliation for the U.K. extradition laws.
Interesting to mention is also an alleged Cyber Espionage campaign targeting networks belonging to US natural gas pipeline companies.
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.
April 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)
Here the first part covering the cyber attacks from 1 to 15 April.
April is over and here it is the second half of the Cyber Attacks Timeline covering the time period spanning from 16 to 30 april 2012.
The last two weeks of this month have been characterized by several remarkable events (at least for the newspapers), such as the #OpBahrain which unleashed a trail of attacks from the Anonymous against websites related to the Formula 1 GP in Bahrain. Other noticeable events triggered by hacktivism include several DDoS attacks against CIA, MI6, Department of Justice, and a couple of Law Enforcement Agencies which continue to be a preferred target for hackers.
On the Cyber Crime front (still the major apparent motivation for the attacks) this month reports, among the events, a breach to Nissan and other DDoS attacks against the District of Columbia, the State of Washington and Nasdaq (I would not define them just motivated by hacktivism). Other events include a couple of 0-day vulnerabilities targeting popular e-mail services and affecting potentially million of users.
Last but not least, April has brought a new cyber attack to Iran crude oil industry, despite, so far, there are no clear evidences of a new Stuxnet-like Cyber Attack. This is not the only episode targeting Iran which also suffered 3 million of banks accounts compromised.
For the chronicle I decided to insert in the timeline also the breach to the game publisher Cryptic Studios. Although it happened in 2010 (sic) it was discovered only few days ago…
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.
Mobile Warfare in Syria
Sources report that last week 150 people were killed during the protests against president Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Also in this circumstance, as already happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the world is witnessing to the protests thanks to the hundreds of citizen reporters equipped with their mobile devices and Internet connections.
The mobile warfare is acting in these countries too: as a matter of fact the tweets allow to follow the protests in real time, by mean of continuously up-to-date short messages, while Facebook allows the spread of the movements throughout the Nation (and not only): the blue social networks calls to join the revolution, by mean of continuously increasing groups, the largest of which The Syrian Revolution 2011, currently counts more than 90.000 supporters. In the same time, more and more videos shot by mobile devices are flooding YouTube.
In a certain sense it looks like the Middle East is playing a global Risk board game, whose troops are represented by mobile devices, whose effects on the social landscape effects on the social landscape have no geographical boundaries, especially for those governments that restrict the civil liberties of their citizens. This global Risk match is far from the end, since the invasion of the Mobile Warfare (and its effects for the governments) is also happening in Yemen and Bahrain, which are suffering similar outbreaks of protests. It is interesting to notice that all the peaks of the revolutions were spaced, in a time scale, by approximately one month:
- Tunisia, Jan 14th 2011: president Ben Ali ousted;
- Egypt, Feb 11th 2011: president Mubarak stepped down;
- Libya, March 19th 2011: after two weeks of fight Operation Odissey Dawn begins
If we perform a kind of extrapolation, does this mean that peaks of the protest in Syria and Jordan will reach the maximum at the half of April?
Speculation aside, as far as Syria is concerned, what is happening is following the same pattern advised in Maghreb area with the only difference that, so far, Syria did not decide to disrupt the internet connection in order to stop the stream of information towards foreign countries.
From a political and social perspective, all the involved countries have too many aspects in common: long-living governments (in Syria the al-Assad Dynasty governed continuously for 40 years, which become 42 in case of the monarchy of Bahrain), younger generations with no dream and trust on future, eager for more freedom. Most of all, younger generations which have access to internet connections and social networks (I was in Syria for work three years ago and can confirm that, even then, the penetration of internet, mobile technologies and social network was well established), through which they may observe, study (and compare), the (apparently) better conditions of their occidental peers.
I think the process is irreversible, and indeed is likely to increase (Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq will probably be suffering other outbreaks in the middle term). Meanwhile will be interesting to notice if the involved governments will apply preventive measures, on large scale, for instance the disruption of the Internet connections, or targeted specifically on mobile devices or preventing to reach the social networks for sharing tweets, groups or videos…
Related Articles
- Tweets Of Freedom (Updated) (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- Mobile Warfare (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- The Thin Red Line (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- Mobile Warfare In Libya Comes True (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- Mobile Warfare in Syria (paulsparrows.wordpress.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.
03/14/2011 - Security Summit 2011: Paolo Passeri guest at Round Table "Mobile Security: Rischi, Tecnologie, Mercato"
02/14/2011 - The Article Gears of Cyberwar published on ICT Security Magazine January 2011.
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