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16 – 31 August 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline
Here the first part with the timeline from 1 to 15 August 2012.
Here we are with the second part of the August 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline. A second part of the month that has been characterized by hacktivism, most of all because of the so-called OperationFreeAssange, which has targeted many high-profile websites.
Among the targets of the month, Philips has been particularly “unlucky”. The Dutch giant has been the victim of three Cyber Attacks, even if there are several doubts about the authenticity of the hacks.
But maybe the biggest operation of the month is the #ProjectHellFire, carried on by the collective @TeamGhostShell, that has unleashed something as 1 million of accounts belonging to different sectors (banks, government agencies, consulting firms, law enforcement and the CIA). And the group promises new action for this Fall and Winter.
The Middle East confirms to be very hot, with a new Cyber Attack, probably another occurrence of Shamoon, targeting RasGas, yet another Oil Company.
Just one note: of course it is impossible to track all the targets of the #OpFreeAssange. You can find a complete list at cyberwarnews.info.
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).
Winds Of Cyber War From The Middle East
Approximately a couple of weeks ago, an Israeli hacker called You-r!-k@n, one of the early contenders of the Middle East Cyber War, had defaced the Iran Energy Water Website. The attack was claimed as a form of cyber protest (and cyber retaliation) against Iranian institutions executed by the same author.
Yesterday, two weeks later, with the same motivations, the same hacker has targeted and defaced 91 Iranian sites, including several government and education sites together with several important companies.
All the affected sites (at the time of writing the ones listed below are still defaced) show the same message against the “terror” and the nuclear strategy of Iran together with an Israeli flag.
According to the author, the list of the victims include:
- The Tehran’s urban development (http://ashayer.gov.ir) and other web sites with domain gov.ir
- A large number of sites faculties and institutions, for example one of the largest universities in Iran: (http://sama-saveh.ac.ir/info1-28.htm);
- The websites of several large electronic companies (http://gaamelectric.ir/info1-28.htm);
- The websites of one of the largest gas and oil company (http://satrap.ir/info1-28.htm);
According to the original statement of You-r!-k@n:
This is an attack against Iran than support terrorism and developing nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.
The situation between the two hot countries of the Middle East continues to be tense, and cyberspace is not an exception.
Iran Energy Water Website Defaced By An Israeli Hacker Against The Terrorist Attack in Burgas
You-r!-k@n keeps on his personal battle against Iran.
The latest target is the official website of Iran Energy Water (tw.org.ir), which has been defaced, showing, in several sections, of the main page, a message against the Iran Nuclear Program and against the recent event in Bulgaria where five Israeli tourists (and their local driver) were killed in a terrorist attack in the Black Sea city of Burgas. At the time of writing the web site is unavailable, showing the well-familiar IIS7 Splash Screen (in spite of the embargo and the alleged Iranian Cyber Autarchy).
As you know, Israel blamed Iran for the latter event (backed by American Officials), and hence, easily predictable, the dispute between the two states has (once again) crossed the boundaries of the cyber world (but a defacement is quite a simple question in comparison with Stuxnet and The Flame).
The time of the Middle East Cyber War is well behind, nevertheless cyber events targeting both countries, whether state-sponsored or carried on by lone rangers, continue to happen at a constant rate.
Middle East Cyber War Reloaded
I have just received an email from the israeli hacker dubbed you-ri-k@n providing me with some details about a peculiar Cyber Attack against an Iranian news web site. Looks like you-ri-k@n has a kind of predilection for Iran: you will probably remember him for his last cyber attack (nearly a couple of months ago) targeting the Iranian Meteorological Organization.
This time the victim is the Islamic Republic Of Iran Broadcasting World Service, whose main page currently shows a fake news reporting the death of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in a plane crash.
Clicking on the “News” button redirects the user to an image where (few) additional details about the fake incident are provided:
Few days ago, with the flame still burning, Iranian officials claimed to be under the fire of a massive cyber attack. Of course this isolated episode may not be compared with Stuxnet or The Flame, nevertheless it shows that, even if in a microscopic scale, the cyber tension between the two countries is still high.
Related articles
- A New Beginning For The Middle East Cyberwar? (hackmageddon.com)
May 2012 Cyber Attacks Timeline (Part II)
As usual, here it is the second part of the Cyber Attacks Timeline for the month of May 2012: a month particularly rich of Cyber Events. As you will probably know, the Flame malware has monopolized the attention, deserving the most attention from the Information Security Professional.
Nevertheless the scene has offered many interesting events, among which it worths to mention the breach of 123,000 federal employees records, the breach affecting University of Nebraska, and, last but not least, the breach against WHCMS (which, as we will soon see, has proved to be fatal for its author).
The hacktivist front is still hot and preannounces another hot summer. On the other hand the authors of several remarkable cyber-criminal actions are probably going to leave the scene: the long trail of arrests made by Law Enforcement Agencies against hackers has continued in this month and has hence led to the arrest of Cosmo, the leader of the infamous group UGNazi, which claimed to be the author of the Cyber Attack against WHCMS.
In your opinion are the arrests against hackers really going to stop the growing number of Cyber Attacks (acting as a deterrent)?
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.
After the jump you find all the references, and at this link the first part covering 1-15 May.
A New Beginning For The Middle East Cyberwar?
After several months of silence, a new resounding dump in Middle East.
I have just received an email message from you-r!-k@n, one of the early pro-Israeli contenders of the Middle East Cyber War, advising me of a new huge dump against an Iranian Server (irimo.ir, Iranian Meteorological Organization), which is currently unavailable. He claims to have acquired administrator privileges for the domain (1500 computers and server, 400 users), and has posted some screenshot as evidence, and the list of 400 Active Directory Users.
Of course I have decided not to publish the list except a small sample (which appears to come from a Windows 2000 Server), but cannot help but notice that, after a couple of months of silence, this is the first new event that closely resembles the resounding dumps which characterized the very first stage of the Middle East Cyber War.
Will this be an isolated episode or a brand new precursor of a new wave of attacks in the Middle East?
Update: Irimo.ir is currently unavailable, however, I was given a screenshot of the site before it was taken down. Looking at the messages left on the devastated site (which announced the erase of the Active Directory), it is interesting to notice that the reference to the Nuclerar as to reaffirm that the standoff between Israel and Iran about the Nuclear Strategy of Tehran, is influencing also the Cyber Space.
Middle East Cyber War Timeline (Part IV)
After some mutual attacks in terms of DDoS and defacements (with a new entry from Morocco and a resounding defacement against the Tel Aviv University Security Studies Program website, the head of the National Cyber Defense Authority), this week has seen the revamping of Credit Cards leaks “thanks” to Zcompany Hacker crew, who dumped more than 200 Credit Cards belonging to Israel And United States.
Even considering this latter event, however, the timeline seems to have confirmed the descending trend, with the early actors of both parties apparently quiet inside their virtual shelters (maybe to elaborate new strategies). But in this apparently calm sky a new thunderstorm threatens the horizon: it is the Anonymous which posted a message promising a reign of terror for Israel…
If you have a look to the Middle East nations involved in the cyber conflict which made attacks or suffered attacks (depicted in the map below that does not include U.S. victim of the latest Credit Card leak and France whose Council of Jewish Institutions was hacked earlier in June), you may easily notice that the virtual geopolitics reflect nearly exactly the real ones (the dotted arrow from Iran indicates the uncertainty of the nationality of OxOmar) with the new entry of Pakistani ZHC.
Middle East Cyber War Timeline Part III
Jan 22: Middle East Cyber War Timeline Part I
Jan 29: Middle East Cyber War Timeline Part II
Feb 12: Middle East Cyber War Timeline Part IV
The more I look inside the Middle East Cyber War between Israel and the Arab Hackers, the more I realize that it follows exactly the same shape than the real conflict.
In particular this last week has seen a strong reduction of the cyber events between the involved parties, although it is not clear if this was due to stronger cyber defenses enforced, or it was rather a kind of “calm before the storm”.
Among the reported events I considered particularly meaningful the attack of InLightPress, a Palestinian news website, of whom I did not find any other report except the one quoted in the Infographic which comes from a Pro-Israeli Website (this is the reason why this event must be considered with the necessary caution). Maybe it is not directly related to the Middle East Cyber War, anyway it looks like this attack was not originated by Israeli hackers, but had rather been “commissioned” by the Palestinian Authority. In the real world political parties or movement have different wings (typically hawks and doves), it looks like this is true for the cyber world as well. On the other hand, some believe that also the attack carried on last week against the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, considered close to Pro-Palestinian movements, has an internal origin, that maybe explains the subsequent excuses by the alleged authors of the attack (BTW at the above link there is an interesting list of the hack published in pastebin by the Israeli Hackers).
Do you believe the descending trend of the cyber events will be confirmed in the next period, or it is rather a temporary cyber truce before the digital storm?
Middle East Cyberwar Timeline Part II
The #OpMegaupload and its subsequent Cyber Attacks all over the world, are diverging the attention from what is happening in the Middle East where the Cyber Conflict between Arab and Israeli Hackers is proceeding at an apparently unstoppable pace which forced me to post an update for the events occurred in the last week.
The rapid escalation of personal information leaks which characterized in the first two weeks of January has slightly changed shape, being replaced in the third week by Defacements and DDoS campaigns (targeting also the web sites of two Israeli Hospitals, as to say that a Cyber Geneva Convention is needed). Other dumps has also occurred, but not of the same scale as the first two weeks of January.
Besides the mutual DDoS and defacements to each other web sites, so far a quick calculation shows that since the beginning of this cyber war Arab Hackers have dumped more than 410,000 Credit Cards and 170,000 accounts, while the Israeli Counterparts have published approximately 11,000 Credit Cards, details of 140,000 individuals and 105,000 emails. Even if these data have to be taken with attention since many records have proven to be duplicated or fake, one consideration is clear: even Cyber Wars have their digital casualties.
The worst is yet to come?
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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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