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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).
The Quassam Group Stops the Cyber Attacks Against US Banks
Finally it looks like the DDoS attacks against US Banks, carried on by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters in name of the infamous Operation Ababil, have been temporarily suspended. The decision is a consequence of the removal of the controversial video “The innocence of Muslim” from Youtube.
Actually only one copy has been removed (the one which collected more views) and a dozen of copies are still available to visitors. Nevertheless the hacktivists have appreciated this action and have consequently suspended the cyber attacks.
The sudden stop came in the moment of maximum peak: in the last two weeks the wave of DDoS has reached an unprecedented level, with 35 attacks against 25 banks. An apparently unstoppable storm that has dramatically shown the fragility of the system. Here the details of the banks impacted (of course you will find them in the forthcoming Cyber Attack Timeline.
|
Date |
Target |
Details |
|
Jan 22 |
 |
The seventh week of Operation Ababil 2 begins with the following banks taken down: |
|
Jan 23 |
 |
Other US banks are targeted: |
|
Jan 24 |
 |
Again, other DDoS attacks against US Banks. The wave is unprecedented and the list of the targets is very long, including:
|
1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Statistics
Here are the statistics for the Cyber Attacks occurred in the first half of January 2013 and included inside the corresponding Cyber Attack Timeline.
The Daily Trend of January shows a couple of peaks in correspondence of the 3rd and the 10th of January, during the DDoS attacks of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters (another minor peak occurred during the 8th of January. On average the sample included 4.67 attacks per day.
Even the attack by the Islamist collective contributed to the overtake of the hacktivism against cyber crime shown in the Motivations Behind Attacks chart. One attack on two of the sample was done for this purpose, even if the authors with different connotations: from the protests against the infamous video “The Innocence of Muslims”, to the retaliation for the suicide of Aaron Swartz, going through the different operations carried on by the Anonymous.
In any case, the Distribution of Attack Techniques chart shows frequency of DDoS Attacks did not prevent the SQL Injection of being the preferred weapon for cybercrooks with the 35% of occurrences. DDoS is immediately behind with the 27% of occurrences.
However, the Distribution Of Targets chart shows that targets belonging to finance were the most preferred in this period with the 25% of preferences, certainly a consequence of the wave of DDoS attacks against US Banks. Governmental targets are very close with the 24% of occurrences. Industry targets complete the podium with the 13%, just before targets belonging to Organizations and Education, respectively with the 8% and 7%.
As usual, no need to remind that the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks included in the 1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (the so-called tip of the iceberg), and hence it 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 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.
Related articles
- 1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline (hackmageddon.com)
- December 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics (hackmageddon.com)
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.
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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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