Archive
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…
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!
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.
I am Terribly Late!
WTF! This month I am terribly late with the Cyber Attack Timeline. I can anticipate that, as you will have probably guessed, this month we have seen an unprecedented rate of attacks.
I have already compiled the timeline of January, I still need a little bit of time to check it and to write the comments as usual. I still do not know if I will be able to publish it today or tomorrow (I am quite busy this afternoon) but, maximum at 12:00 CET of tomorrow it will be here.
Thanks for your patience, and please continue to support my work with your visits!
June 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)
Update 07/05/2012: June 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)
A (first half of the) month living dangerously…
June has come and strongly confirms that Summer is the preferred month for Cybercrookers: just look back at June 2011 and you will probably remember the days of Lulz of the infamous LulzSec Collective (which curiously seems to be reborn!).
June 2012 has shown a remarkable number of incidents and is proving to be a mensis horribilis (horrible month) for Social Networks and Online Services in general, due to the high profile breaches of LinkedIn, Last.Fm, eHarmony and the online game League of Legends.
On a geographic scale, looks like China is becoming another important source of Cyber incidents, having been targeted from #TeamGhostShell, who claim, inside their #ProjectDragonFly, to have obtained up to 800,000 accounts from different sources.
Hacktivism-led actions seem (apparently) to decline, whilst, on the Cyber Crime front, a new collective, UGNazi, is taking the scene, having confirmed, in the first part of June, the wake of cyber attacks, we have become familiar with for some time.
Another Infosec Summer promising to be very hot!
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.
May 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics
As I did last month for the Cyber Attacks occurred in April, I have aggregated the data collected on the timelines of May (on the right) in order to provide a consolidated view of the month according to the three parameters of Motivations Behind Attacks, Distribution of Targets and Distribution of Attack Techniques. Again, no need to repeat that data must be taken very carefully since they do refers only to discovered attacks (the so-called tip of the iceberg), and hence do not pretend to be exhaustive but only aim to provide an high level overview of the “cyber landscape” of the month.
As far as Motivations Behind Attacks are concerned, month after month, the charts are becoming monotonous. Cyber Crime ranked undoubtedly at number one with the 61% of occurrences. Twice the occurrences of Hacktivism which ranked at number two. In this chart, Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage motivated-attacks are well behind although they were few but good (One Flame was enough for this month, wasn’t it?).
The Distribution of Targets chart is highly fragmented even if with a familar pattern: Government targets ranked firmly on top of the preferences for the attackers, with Education and Law Enforcement targets completing the top three (although, compared to April, they swapped their positions in this unenviable chart). It worths to mention that targets belonging to organizations that offers on-line services are fragmented as well, but if the single entries are summed up, they would rank at number two with approximately the 15% of occurrences.
The Distribution of Attack Techniques chart whows that SQL Injection has been the preferred weapon used by Cyber Criminals in May, overtaking Distributed Denial of Service, the Cyber Paintball Pistol. Clearly the occurrences of DDoS attacks are influenced by the winds of hacktivism which did not blow so high in May. Interesting to notice a further important number of events (17% of the sample) related to unknown attacks targeting DBs, which clearly shows that data repositories are proving to be the weakes element of the chain. May the patch enFORCEment be with you!
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.
May 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)
As usual, here it is the second part of the Cyber Attacks Timeline for the month of May 2012: a month particularly rich of Cyber Events. As you will probably know, the Flame malware has monopolized the attention, deserving the most attention from the Information Security Professional.
Nevertheless the scene has offered many interesting events, among which it worths to mention the breach of 123,000 federal employees records, the breach affecting University of Nebraska, and, last but not least, the breach against WHCMS (which, as we will soon see, has proved to be fatal for its author).
The hacktivist front is still hot and preannounces another hot summer. On the other hand the authors of several remarkable cyber-criminal actions are probably going to leave the scene: the long trail of arrests made by Law Enforcement Agencies against hackers has continued in this month and has hence led to the arrest of Cosmo, the leader of the infamous group UGNazi, which claimed to be the author of the Cyber Attack against WHCMS.
In your opinion are the arrests against hackers really going to stop the growing number of Cyber Attacks (acting as a deterrent)?
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.
After the jump you find all the references, and at this link the first part covering 1-15 May.
1-15 May 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics
As I did in the last month, I have summarized the data collected in my Cyber Attacks Sample for the first half of May, (whose thumbnail is on the right), in order to provide some aggregated statistics. Collected Data have been summarized in three charts representing: Motivations Behind Attacks, Distribution of Targets and Distribution of Attack Techniques. Although the 60 attacks sample does not intend to be comprehensive (and hence the results must be taken with caution), the charts provide a quick overview, which in turn might be useful to identify trends and hopefully to address countermeasures. Apparently the trend is quite (un)stable with Cyber Crime, ranking at number one as the primary motivation for the attacks, and Governments that continue to be the preferred targets for cybercrookers.
As far as Motivations Behind Attacks are concerned, once again Cyber Crime ranks at number one with nearly the 70% of occurrences. Hacktivism is well behind with “only” the 23% followed by Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage that triggered singularly the 10% of attacks. If compared with April, the trend shows a growth of Cyber Crime and a corresponding reduction of hacktivism. As far as Cyber Espionage is concerned, particularly interesting om this month have been the Attack to U.K. Ministry Of Defence and to some undisclosed U.S. Natural Gas Companies.
The Distribution of Targets chart confirms that Governments continue to be the preferred targets for Cyber Criminals and Hacktivists with nearly one third (30%) of occurrences. With respect to April, targets belonging to educational sector have gained one position ranking at number two with the 15% of occurrences and before the LEAs which shifted at the third place with the 7% of occurrences. If we sum up military targets to LEAs we have the 12%. In any case the trend is in line with the previous month.
SQL Injection is the number one among Attack Techniques, with the 36% of occurrences taking over, at least in the first two weeks of may, Distributed Denial Of Service, that ranks at number two with the 18%. Summing up the “conclamated” SQLi Attacks with the “uncertain” SQLi Attacks, leads to the surprising result that nearly one attack on two (46%) has been performed exploiting this kind of vulnerability. So definitively run and patch your applications!
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 at ppasseri@gmail.com details about Cyber attacks in order to make the timelines even more detailed and meaningful.
Related articles
- April 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics (hackmageddon.com)
- May 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I) (hackmageddon.com)
April 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics
I have aggregated the data collected related to cyber attacks occurred in April 2012 (that you may find in the links on the right) in order to provide a consolidated view for the month. The statistics have been taken according to three parameters: Motivations Behind Attacks, Distribution of Targets and Distribution of Attack Techniques. Of course the information does not pretend to be exhaustive, in any case it is useful to provide a snapshot on the cyber landscape of the last month.
As far as the Motivations Behind Attacks are concerned, Cyber Crime ranks undoubtedly at number one with the 51% of the occurrences. Hacktivism is at number two with “only” the 39% of the occurrences. Other motivations such as Cyber Warfare or Cyber Espionage are far behind with respectively the 7 and 2 percent. This is not a surprise since attacks motivated by Cyber Espionage should be supposed to be subtle and hidden and this explains their rank (unlike the attacks motivated by hacktivism that use to attract the greatest attention by media).
As far as the Distribution Of Targets is concerned, Governements keep on to be preferred targets, with nearly one third of the occurrences. Law Enforcement Agencies rank at number two with 9% immediately followed by Educational Institutions with 7%. Online Platforms such as Online Games or other kind of platforms (such as email services) are behind with the 6% of occurrences for both of them. Of course the high position for governments and LEAs is quite simple to explain: both categories are the preferred targets for hactkivists.
A month characterized by Distributed Denial of Service, at least according to the Distribution of Attack Techniques chart. SQL Injection ranks at number two, immediately followed by Defacement. If we sum up also the indirect occurrences of SQLi (that is those cases whose symptoms seem the ones proper of SQLi but no direct evidences were found) the distribution of the two techniques is nearly the same (respectively 29% for DDoS and 27% for SQLi). Of course DDoS is the preferedd cyber weapon for hacktivists and this explain its dominion on this unwelcomed chart.
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.
Related articles
- April Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II) (hackmageddon.com)
- April Cyber Attacks Timenile (Part I) (hackmageddon.com)
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.
About The Author
Support My Work!
Share:
News
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.
Visitors from…
