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1-15 January 2013 Cyber Attacks Timeline
So here we are with the first Cyber Attacks Timeline for 2013 covering the first half of January.
Apparently the new year has begun with an intense activity by Cyber Crooks. Hacktivists and Cyber Criminals had many time to spend in front of their keyboards during the holiday break, and as a consequence the number of breaches with more than 10.000 accounts compromised is incredibly high. WWF China, the City of Steubenville, Ohio and The German Chamber of Commerce are only three examples of institutions that suffered massive breaches during the beginning of this year.
But the massive breaches are not the only remarkable events of this period: the waves of DDoS Attacks against US banks continued (and promise to extend also in the next weeks), Kaspersky Lab discovered a new massive Cyber Espionage Campaign dubbed “Red October”, and also the Japan Farm Ministry was hit by yet another Cyber Attack, allegedly originating from China…
If this is only the beginning… 2013 promises to be pretty much troubled 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 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.
March 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)
First Part: March 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)
It is time for the second part of the March 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline, a month that will probably be remembered for the breach occurred to Global Payments, a credit card processor, whose aftermath may potentially affect up to 10 million credit card holders belonging, among the others, to Visa and MasterCard.
On the hacktivism front, not even three weeks after the arrest of several LulzSec members, a new hacking crew has appeared whose name, LulzSecReborn, clearly reminds the infamous collective and its Days of Lulz. They entered the scene with a noticeable, albeit discussed, leak: more than 170.000 records from a military dating site.
Other remarkable hacktivism-led cyber attacks include the so called #OpFariseo, a wave of Cyber Attacks targeting websites related to the visit of the Pope in Mexico, and a new cyber attack to PBS. It is also important to notice the debut of the Anonymous in China, a debut characterized by a massive wave of defacements.
Last but not least, among the events of this month there is one which in particular deserves a mention, and is the leak which targeted Vector Inc., a Japanese computer selling firm, potentially affecting more than 260,000 users.
As usual after the jump you will find all the references.
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 @pausparrows on Twitter for the latest updates.
School of Hacktivism
A like Anonymous
There are really few doubts, this is the most (in)famous hacking collective. There is no new day without a new resounding action. They are Anonymous. They are Legion. They do not forgive. They do not forget. Expect Them.
B like Barrett Brown
Considered one of the early members, Barrett Brown is the alleged spokesperson of Anonymous.
C like Chanology (AKA Project Chanology, AKA Operation Chanology)
A protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by Anonymous. The project (or Operation) was started in response to the Church of Scientology’s attempts to remove material from a highly publicized interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008 and was followed by DDoS attacks and other actions such as black faxes and prunk calls.
D like DDoS
Distributed Denial of Service (abbreviated DDoS) is the preferred weapon by Hackitivsts, since it does not need particular hacking skills and may also be centrally controlled (with a hive mind who define the target). The preferred tool for perpetrating DDoS attacks is LOIC, although next-gen tools are under development.
E like Encyclopædia Dramatica
A satirical open wiki, launched on December 10, 2004 and defunct on April 14 2011. It is considered one of the sources of inspiration for The Anonymous.[1]
F like Fawkes Guy AKA Fawkes Guido
Guy Fawkes (13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), also known as Guido Fawkes, belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot, a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England. His stylised mask designed by illustrator David Lloyd and used as a major plot element in the “V for Vendetta“ Comic Book, is the symbol for the Anonymous. The failure of the Gunpowder plot has been commemorated in England since 5 November 1605.
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)
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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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