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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).
December 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics
December (and hence this 2012) is gone, so it is time to analyze the statistics for the corresponding Cyber Attacks Timelines.
According to the Daily Trend of December, the Christmas break has not stopped the hackers. The trend is quite constant (with a decrease around the end of the month) and with a peak around the 21st of December (the alleged End of the World according to the Mayan Calendar).
The Motivations Behind Attacks chart shows an inversion of tendency in comparison with November. Cyber Crime and Hacktivism had nearly the same impact with respectively the 47% and 46% of occurrences. It is also interesting the presence of Cyber Warfare and Cyber Espionage Campaigns (mainly concentrated in the East).
Also in December, the Distribution Of Attack Techniques Chart confirms the predominance of SQL Injection, even if with a slightly lower impact than the previous month when it was at the 52%: nearly one attack on three has been carried on with this technique. Instead, in almost one attack on four, there was not enough information. Despite the attacks by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, the weight of DDoS is progressively decreasing (this category ranks at number four with the 17% of occurrences), while, on the other side, the number of discovered targeted attacks is growing. Maybe they are increasingly attracting the attention of Security Researchers.
Again an inversion in comparison with November: the Distribution Of Targets chart shows that in the December cyber-crooks diverted their attention for targets belonging to the Government sector, even if industries and organizations are very close (the peak of the latter is due to the campaign of the Anonymous against the Westboro Baptist Church. It is also interesting to notice the peak of attacks against Financial institutions mainly due to the waves of DDoS attacks against the U.S. Bank.
As usual, no need to remind that the sample must be taken very carefully since it refers only to discovered attacks included in the December 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 (regularly updated), 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).
Related articles
- November 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics (hackmageddon.com)
- October 2012 Cyber Attacks Statistics (hackmageddon.com)
16-31 December 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline
The year is gone, and here it is the last Cyber Attack Timeline for 2012 (first part here).
The most important cyber-events of this second part of December can be considered: the third phase of the operation Ababil carried on by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters against U.S. Banks, the attacks of the Anonymous collective against the Westboro Baptist Church, and, last but not least the Cyberwar echoes coming from Iran.
The wave of DDoS attacks carried on by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has taken down Six U.S. Banks under the fists of DDoS attacks apparently unstoppable. Instead the Anonymous seem to have changed tactic in their personal fight against the Westboro Baptist Church, they did not limit to DDoS the church’s website, but also performed a couple of Twitter account takeover against some key persons (with the collaboration of UGNazi members).
Instead, on the Cyberwar front, Iran confirms to be a danger zone, with some reports of a new Wiper and a simil-Stuxnet malware (even if this second news has been downplayed in a second moment.
Other noticeable news include an alleged breach to Yahoo!, a massive breach against a Chinese HP domain and a strange, controversial breach against Verizon FiOS (with data apparently leaked six months 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 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.
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.
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.
February 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part I)
February 2012 brings a new domain for my blog (it’s just a hackmaggedon) and confirms the trend of January with a constant and unprecedented increase in number and complexity of the events. Driven by the echo of the ACTA movement, the Anonymous have performed a massive wave of attacks, resuming the old habits of targeting Law Enforcement agencies. From this point of view, this month has registered several remarkable events among which the hacking of a conf call between the FBI and Scotland Yard and the takedown of the Homeland Security and the CIA Web sites.
The Hacktivism front has been very hot as well, with attacks in Europe and Syria (with the presidential e-mail hacked) and even against United Nations (once again) and NASDAQ Stock Exchange.
Scroll down the list and enjoy to discover the (too) many illustrious victims including Intel, Microsoft, Foxconn and Philips. After the jump you find all the references and do not forget to follow @paulsparrows for the latest updates. Also have a look to the Middle East Cyberwar Timeline, and the master indexes for 2011 and 2012 Cyber Attacks.
Addendum: of course it is impossible to keep count of the huge amount of sites attacked or defaced as an aftermath of the Anti ACTA movements. In any case I suggest you a couple of links that mat be really helpful:
- List of all vulnerable websites attacked by anonymous Part II (updated daily) (via cylaw.info)
- List of Websites Hacked, Defaced & Taken Down By Anonymous (via valuewalk.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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