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One Year Of Lulz (Part I)
Update December 26: 2011 is nearly gone and hence, here it is One Year Of Lulz (Part II)
This month I am a little late for the December Cyber Attacks Timeline. In the meantime, I decided to collect on a single table the main Cyber Attacks for this unforgettable year.
In this post I cover the first half (more or less), ranging from January to July 2011. This period has seen the infamous RSA Breach, the huge Sony and Epsilon breaches, the rise and fall of the LulzSec Group and the beginning of the hot summer of Anonymous agsainst the Law Enforcement Agencies and Cyber Contractors. Korea was also affected by a huge breach. The total cost of all the breaches occurred inthis period (computed with Ponemon Institute’s estimates according to which the cost of a single record is around 214$) is more than 25 billion USD.
As usual after the page break you find all the references.
Antisec hacks another Defense Contractor
Update August 19: As part of #FFF IV Antisec has released full torrent for Vanguard Defense Industries Hack.
The Antisec Typhoon seems unstoppable and has apparently hacked another Defense Contractor. Continuing their campaign against law enforcement agencies and related organizations, driven by the infamous hash #FFFriday, this time they have targeted Richard Garcia, the Senior Vice President of Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI). During the Breach nearly 4,713 emails and thousands of documents were stolen.
According to TechHerald, AntiSec targeted VDI’s website due to their relationship with several law enforcement agencies from Texas and other parts of the U.S., as well as their relationship with the FBI, the DHS, and U.S. Marshals Service. Moreover, with this hack Antisec (in)directly targeted FBI since Richard Garcia is the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s field office in Los Angeles. To those supporting AntiSec, this alone is reason enough to target VDI and release Garcia’s corporate email to the public.
As usual the attack had been anticipated by an enigmatic and threatening tweet:
The emails were taken after AntiSec breached VDI’s website, based on the popular WordPress platform. According to Antisec source, VDI had two outdated plugins installed on their website, which had its development outsourced to a local marketing company in Texas. Although the person from AntiSec did not disclose the exact method used to access Garcia’s email, he stated that the hack was performed through the VDI website, and that his password was rather weak.
VDI is the responsible for ShadowHawk, an unmanned helicopter that can be tasked with aerial surveillance or equipped for military usage. At its base, the ShadowHawk comes with CCD TV optics, or an upgraded version includes CCD TV optics and FLIR optics. A third version, for military or law enforcement usage only, can be equipped with a single or multiple shot 37 mm or 40mm grenade launcher, as well as a 12g shotgun, and thermal cameras.
The is only the last leak to Defense Contractor, scroll down the list for attacks targeting Defense Contractors in this very troubled year:
| Date | Author | Description | Organization | Attack |
| Feb 5 |
  |
Anonymous hacks HBGary Federal Web Site, copies tens of thousands of documents, posts tens of thousands of emails online and usurps CEO Aaron Baar’s Twitter Account. |
 |
? |
| Apr 6 |
? |
An E-mail dated April 6, sent to 5,000 employees of U.S. Defense Contractor L-3 warns of an attack attempt made with compromised SecureIDs. It is not clear if the attack was successful (it was revelead half a month later). This is in absolute the first attack perpetrated with RSA Seeds. |
 |
Compromised SecureID |
| May 21 | ? |
This is the first known (and the only officially recognized so far) attack perpetrated with compromised SecureID seeds targeting a U.S. Defense Contractor. This Attack was detected before any sensitive information could be stolen. 100,000 accounts were locked as a precaution. |
 |
Compromised SecureID |
| May 26 | ? |
Third U.S. Defense Contractor attacked using Compromised RSA Seeds. Attacked detected before any sensitive data was stolen. |
 |
SQLi? |
| Jun 3 |
|
As part of the FFFriday campaign, LulzSec steals 180 usernames, real names, hashed and plain text passwords, are acquired and posted publicily |
 |
N/A |
| Jul 8 |
 |
Anonymous attacks IRC Federal and dumps the content of the attack on a torrent available at The Pirate Bay. The dumped content include databases, private emails, contracts, development schematics, and internal documents for various government institutions. |
 |
SQLi? |
| July 11 | |
Anonymous attacks consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and releases details of internal data including 90,000 military emails and passwords. Estimated cost of the breach is around $5,400,000.00. |
 |
SQLi? |
| Jul 11 | ? |
The Pentagon reveals to have suffered a breach of 24,000 documents in March, during a single intrusion believed to have been perpetrated by a Foreign Country. As a consequence of the Intrusion, a classified U.S. Military Weapon System will need to be redesigned after specs and plans were stolen during the breach. |
 |
? |
| Jul 28 |
|
Mantech International Corporation Anonymous hacks Mantech International Corporation, another FBI Contractor, as a consolidated tradition on Friday, and releases details of internal data and documsnts. |
 |
? |
| Jul 29 |
|
U.S. Law Enforcement Institutions As part of the Antisec operation and in retaliation for the raids and the arrest again alleged Anonymous and LulzSec members, Anonymous attacks 77 U.S. Law Enforcement Institutions, defacing and destroying their servers. |
 |
SQLi? |
| Aug 1 |
|
PCS ConsultantsAnother U.S. Government contractor, PCS Consultants gets hacked by Anonymous & Antisec. Hackers extract website Database and leak it on the internet via Twitter on Pastebin (as usual!). Leaked Data include Admin’s and 110 users emails, plus passwords in encrypted hashes. |  |
? |
| Aug 16 |
|
Antisec targets Richard Garcia, the Senior Vice President of Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI). During the Breach nearly 4,713 emails and thousands of documents are stolen. As consolidated tradtion, the torrent is released on Friday, August the 19th. |
 |
Vulnerability in WordPress Hosting Platform |
Related articles
- Vanguard Defense Industries compromised by AntiSec (thetechherald.com)
July 2011 Cyber Attacks Timeline
This awful infosec July is over, and finally we can sum up the Cyber Attacks reported during this month. I collected all the available information and inserted it inside the following chart. Where possible (that is enough information available) I tried to estimate the cost of the attacks using the indications from the Ponemon’s insitute according to which the average cost of a Data Breach is US $214 for each compromised record. The total sum (for the known attacks) is around $7.6 billion, mainly due to the “National Data Breach” of the South Korean Social Network Cyworld.
Approximately 16 attacks were directly or indirectly related to Antisec or Anonymous, they promised an hot summer and unfortunately are keeping their word…
Useful resources for compiling the (very long) chart were taken from:
1 http://www.zeropaid.com/news/94099/abhaxas-dumps-details-of-the-internal-florida-voting-database-online/
2 http://www.pcworld.com/article/235016/hackers_claim_apple_online_data_was_compromised.html
3 http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/07/fox-news-twitter-account-hacked-by.html
4 http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/07/05/sony-music-ireland-hackers/
5 http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20077268-245/sophisticated-attack-targets-two-energy-dept-labs
6 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/dump-up-the-kids/
7 http://www.zeropaid.com/news/94250/abhaxas-hacks-floridas-voting-system-again/
8 http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2086749/anonymous-boasts-takedown-turkish-sites
9 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/08/patriotic_portuguese_hackers_hit_moody/
10 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/another-fbi-contractor-hacked/5
11 http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/German-Federal-Police-servers-compromised-1276115.html
12 http://www.hackersbay.in/2011/07/anonymous-shuts-down-ministry-of.html
13 http://www.kiplinger.com/securityfaq/
14 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/another-one-bytes-the-dump/
15 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/monsanto-hack-info-of-2500-employees-leaked/
16 http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/07/toshiba-database-hacked-and-user.html
17 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/the-mother-of-all-breaches/
18 http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2011/07/16/lady-gaga-website-hacked-and-fans-details-stolen-115875-23274356/
19 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/the-lulzsec-boat-is-back-and-sails-under-the-sun/
20 http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20081405-83/anonymous-claims-to-have-breached-nato-security
21 http://www.cyberwarnews.info/2011/07/24/philippians-congress-hacked-by-bashcrew/
22 http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/07/22/anonplus-anonymouss-social-network-is-hacked/
23 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/anonplus-hacked-again-by-syrian-group/
24 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/italian-cyber-police-hacked/
25 http://austrianindependent.com/news/Business/2011-07-26/8537/ORF_hack_attack_worse_than_feared
26 http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20110728000881
27 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/anonymous-claims-another-fbi-contractor-hacked/
28 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/italian-anonymous-owned/
29 http://paulsparrows.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/its-a-cruel-summer/
30 http://www.thehackernews.com/2011/07/italys-police-it-network-vitrocisetit.html
Related articles
- 2011 Cyber Attacks (and Cyber Costs) Timeline (Updated) (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- 2011 CyberAttacks Timeline (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- 50 Days of Hunt (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
- LulzSec hacking: a timeline (telegraph.co.uk)
- Anonymous Denies Paternity For the CNAIPIC Hack (paulsparrows.wordpress.com)
It’s A Cruel Summer
The Cruel Summer the title of this post refers to, is not the famous ’83 pop hit by Bananarama, but just a brief summary of what is happening on Information Security, most of all for those companies and istitutions falling among the target of Anonymous.
Yesterday the latest: as part of the #Antisec operation and in retaliation for the raids and the arrest again alleged Anonymous and LulzSec members (provided they are the right ones), Anonymous attacked 77 U.S. Law Enforcement Institutions, defacing and destroying their servers.
In the attack, as usual announced by Twitter, massive amounts of confidential and personal information were stolen (10 Gb according to Anonymous), including emails, passwords, classified documents, internal files, informant lists, and more.
Moreover 7,000 law enforcement officials’ private data were posted, including: social security numbers; email accounts and passwords; phone numbers and home addresses.
Here is the list of the compromised domains:
20jdpa.com, adamscosheriff.org, admin.mostwantedwebsites.net,
alabamasheriffs.com, arkansassheriffsassociation.com,
bakercountysheriffoffice.org, barrycountysheriff.com, baxtercountysheriff.com,
baxtercountysherifffoundation.org, boonecountyar.com, boonesheriff.com,
cameronso.org, capecountysheriff.org, cherokeecountyalsheriff.com,
cityofgassville.org, cityofwynne.com, cleburnecountysheriff.com,
coahomacountysheriff.com, crosscountyar.org, crosscountysheriff.org,
drewcountysheriff.com, faoret.com, floydcountysheriff.org, fultoncountyso.org,
georgecountymssheriff.com, grantcountyar.com, grantcountysheriff-collector.com,
hodgemansheriff.us, hotspringcountysheriff.com, howardcountysheriffar.com,
izardcountyar.org, izardcountysheriff.org, izardhometownhealth.com,
jacksonsheriff.org, jeffersoncountykssheriff.com, jeffersoncountyms.gov,
jocomosheriff.org, johnsoncosheriff.com, jonesso.com, kansassheriffs.org,
kempercountysheriff.com, knoxcountysheriffil.com, lawrencecosheriff.com,
lcsdmo.com, marioncountysheriffar.com, marionsoal.com, mcminncountysheriff.com,
meriwethercountysheriff.org, monroecountysheriffar.com, mosheriffs.com,
mostwantedgovernmentwebsites.com, mostwantedwebsites.net,
newtoncountysheriff.org, perrycountysheriffar.org, plymouthcountysheriff.com,
poalac.org, polkcountymosheriff.org, prairiecountysheriff.org,
prattcountysheriff.com, prentisscountymssheriff.com, randolphcountysheriff.org,
rcpi-ca.org, scsosheriff.org, sebastiancountysheriff.com, sgcso.com,
sharpcountysheriff.com, sheriffcomanche.com, stfranciscountyar.org,
stfranciscountysheriff.org, stonecountymosheriff.com, stonecountysheriff.com,
talladegasheriff.org, tatecountysheriff.com, tishomingocountysheriff.com,
tunicamssheriff.com, vbcso.com, woodsonsheriff.com
It has been an hard Week-End, started with the hack of ManTech, and just ended (maybe) with this further resounding action…
Luckily this dirty July is nearly over… from the meteorological point of view, this summer is not very hot, at least in Italy, the same can not be said for Information Security for which I do not remember a month so troubled. Will it end here, or will the peak (of meterological and information security temperatures) be reached in August?
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)
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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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