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February 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline
Find here February 2012 Cyber Attacks Timelime Part I.
With a small delay (my apologies but the end of February has been very busy for me and not only for Cybercrooks as you will soon see), here it is the second part of my compilation with the main Cyber Attacks for February 2012.
Easily Predictable, the Hacktivism is still the main concern for System Administrators, in particular for the ones of Stratfor who suffered a huge leak of 5 million of emails.
On the same front, the threats of the Anonymous for the Friday actions have come true and as a matter of fact Law Enforcement Agencies suffered other remarkable breaches in this month: Infragard for the second time and also Interpol (a new entry) that was taken down after the arrest of 25 members of the collective. Anti ACTA protest also continue to shake Europe as also the delicate economical and social situation in Greece.
Last but not least, this month has also seen an unforgettable leak, affecting potentially more than 1.000.000 Youporn users.
As usual, the chart does not include the events related to Middle East Cyber War Timeline, that you may find at this link, as they “deserve” a dedicated timeline.
After the jump you find all the references, follows @paulsparrows for the latest updates on a regular basis and also have a look to the 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline Master Index.
Anonymous Claims ManTech, Another FBI Contractor, Hacked
Event quite common in the last times, it looks like another FBI contractor has been hacked, as a consolidated tradition, on Friday. This time the victim is ManTech and the hack has been claimed by Anonymous with a preview twitted by the AnonymousIRC account:
If confirmed the hack could sound quite embarassing, since, as mentioned on the tweet, nearly one year ago, Mantech won a $100M contract for FBI cybersecurity services.
On the other hand, Friday risks seriously to become a black day for FBI after other two infamous attacks happened on the same day (for what Anonymous defines #FFFriday): on June, the 3rd, 180 usernames, real names, passwords, and email addresses were leaked from another FBI contractor, Infraguard, and posted publicily by the LulzSec; on July, the 9h, IRC Federal was hacked, and the content of the leak, dumped at The Pirate Bay.
But also Monday is not a particular safe day for U.S. contractors after Anonymous attacked consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton on July, the 12th, and released details of internal data including 90,000 military emails and passwords.
Related articles
- Another FBI Contractor Hacked! (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- Another One Bytes The Dump (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
Someone has been arrested for using LOIC
Probably LOIC is not so safe as it was supposed to be.
Yesterday FOX News (curiously the American province of the Murdoch Empire which had suffered an hacking attack by the Lulz Boat the day before) was the first to report of three FBI Raids at the New York homes of three suspected members of notorious hacking group Anonymous early Tuesday morning. Later on the same day more details came clear, including the fact that the raids were part of a wider ongoinhg operation involving, to date, more than 35 search warrants issued by FBI (for a total of 75 searches to date), after which sixteen suspected members of Anonymous were arrested in Florida, New Jersey and California (more details in the official FBI press release including the names of the arrested individuals).
The arrested individuals were considered responsable for the DDoS attacks against Visa, Mastercards, PayPal and more, after the companies decided to suspend donations for WikiLeaks.
In the same hours, again according to Fox News, officers from the Metropolitan Police’s E-Crime Unit in London arrested a 16-year-old boy in South London Tuesday afternoon, on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act. The suspected individual could be Tflow, a key member of the infamous hacker group LulzSec, and he has beeen charged of the Infragard hacking, an affiliate to FBI, on June, the 3rd 2011.
If we exclude the arrest of the alleged Lulzsec member, as I already suggested, probably in many cases the alleged Anonymous members are “Would-be” hacker, recklessly involved in hactivism campaigns on the wave of enthusiasm butwithout the necessary skills. This explains the low average age of the teens purportedly involved. As a confirm I found this interesting post on ReddIt in which a family man tells, triggering the predictable comments from taxpayers, of an FBI in his house with a search warrant (20 agents, guns drawn) because they seemed to believe his 13 year old son was an integral part of the ANON ddos attack on Paypal (I must confess that for an European grown with Sci-Fi U.S. Movies like I am, the imagine of 4 cars and a black van filled with FBI agents invading a common house is priceless). It looks like this is not the only example.
No One has ever been arrested for using LOIC? Not anymore…
Related articles
- No One has ever been arrested for using LOIC (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- FBI searches homes of suspected Anonymous hacktivists in New York (nakedsecurity.sophos.com)
Another One Bytes The Dump
Update July 12: Booz Allen Confirms Illegal Attack on Information Technology System
It looks like that security issues for US Military contractors never end. The consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton is only the last which has fallen under the blows of anonymous. In the name of the #AntiSec operation hackers claimed today that they compromised a server released internal data, including about 90,000 military e-mail addresses. Due to the huge amount of data leaked, the operation was called #MilitaryMeltdownMonday.
We infiltrated a server on their network that basically had no security measures in place. We were able to run our own application, which turned out to be a shell and began plundering some booty. Most shiny is probably a list of roughly 90,000 military emails and password hashes (md5, non-salted of course!). We also added the complete sqldump, compressed ~50mb, for a good measure.
The entire statement is available on pastebin, while the leaked data have been inserted into a torrent at The Pirate Bay, and are also already available on pastebin, although password are hashed (but not salted).
We also were able to access their svn, grabbing 4gb of source code. But this was deemed insignificant and a waste of valuable space, so we merely grabbed it, and wiped it from their system.
It was clear that something was in the air since a couple of days, as some tweets announced “the biggest day in #anonymous‘ history according to sabu”:
This might be an indication that the ghost of the infamous group LulzSec played a crucial role in the attack to Booz Allen Hamilton. As a matter of fact Sabu, is the alleged leader of the infamous group LulzSec, and also the alleged author of the hack to HBGary Federal, another military contractor hacked earlier this year becouse of its CEO Aaron Barr claimed to have unmasked some Anonymous members. In response to his actions, the hackers dumped 71,000 emails which revealed, among the others things, that HBGary had worked with Booz Allen Hamilton to develop a response plan for Bank of America based on what the bank feared might be an upcoming leak of its internal documents by WikiLeaks.
The Anonymous statement also paints the contractor as another player involved (together with HBGary) on a military project, dubbed Operation Metal Gear by Anonymous (for lack of an official title) designed to manipulate social media, and as a revolving door of military-related conflicts of interest, and argues that the firm has been involved in mass surveillance projects.
The company wrote on its Twitter feed that “as part of @BoozeAllen security policy, we generally do not comment on specific threats or actions taken against our systems.”
This is only the last attack to a U.S. Contractor. On July, the 9th, Anonymous attacked IRC Federal, an FBI contractor, and dumped the content of the attack on a torrent available once again at The Pirate Bay. The dumped content apparently included databases, private emails, contracts, development schematics, and internal documents for various government institutions. The attack was performed as a sequel to the first one against Infragard, another FBI affiliate, on June, the 3rd performed (what a coincidence) from LulzSec.
After HBGary Federal, between April and May 2011 three U.S. Defense contractors: L-3, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman were attacked by using compromised RSA seeds, although in this case no one has been identified as the author of the attacks, and also no connection with anonymous has been found.
Related articles
- Hackers claim they exposed Booz Allen Hamilton data (news.cnet.com)
- 50 Days of Hunt (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
Another FBI Contractor Hacked!
Oops they did it again! As part of their F**k FBI Friday holiday, Anonymous claimed to have hacked another FBI contractor, IRC Federal, and dumped its content at The Pirate Bay.
The action, in the name of the #AntiSec campaign, was announced with a tweet:
containing the links to a torrent hosted at The Pirate Bay (currenty unavailable) and to a pastebin txt release.
This action follows the first original F**k FBI Friday, a term dubbed by the infamous hacker group LulzSec, to describe the first hack performed against Infragard, an FBI affiliate, on June, the 3rd (another black friday for information security). This time the leaked material apparently include databases, private emails, contracts, development schematics, and internal documents for various government institutions including a proposal for the FBIto develop a “Special Identities Modernization (SIM) Project” to “reduce terrorist and criminal activity by protecting all records associated withtrusted individuals and revealing the identities of those individuals who maypose serious risk to the United States and its allies”.
Even if the Lulz Boat decided to haul down the flag and sail towards more peaceful shores, the sea of hactivism is far from being quiet…
Related articles
- LulzSec Hackers Go After FBI Affiliates [Cyberspace] (gawker.com)




























