BBC Server Compromised! Russian Hackers Broke Into FTP & Tried to Sell Unauthorized Access

BBC Server Compromised! Russian Hackers Hacked Into FTP & Tried to Sell Unauthorized Access on The X-Mass Evening 

Earlier we have seen world renowned media houses like CNN, NBC, Fox News, Washington Post, NY Times, NDTV and so on have fallen victim to hackers and cyber criminals. Now it was the turn for world’s largest and oldest broadcaster -British Broadcasting Corporation, widely known to us as BBC. Sources revealed that cyber criminals have managed to breach the security system of BBC and secretly took over a computer server at the BBC and then launched a Christmas Day campaign to convince other cyber criminals to pay him for access to the system. The attack was first identified by a cyber security firm named Hold Security LLC, in Milwaukee that monitors underground cyber crime forums in search of stolen information. However, it is still not clear whether the hacker stole any information or data or caused any damage to the site. In conversation with press Alex Holden, founder and Chief Information Security Officer of Hold Security told -"So far Hold Security researchers have found no evidence the conversations led to a deal or that data was stolen from the BBC.” So far the identity of hacker has not been confirmed, but the firm researchers observed a notorious Russian hacker known by the monikers "HASH" and "Rev0lver," attempting to sell access to the BBC server on December 25. However, BBC's security team managed to secure the site on Saturday, claims a person close to clean up efforts. One of the BBC spokesman refused to comment on the issue, he said, “We do not comment on security issues.” On the other hand, Justin Clarke, a principal consultant for the cyber security firm Cylance, said that while "accessing that server establishes a foothold within BBC's network which may allow an attacker to pivot and gain further access to internal BBC resources.” So far Hold Security researchers have found no evidence the conversations led to a deal or that data was stolen from the BBC. But we all know that  ftp systems are typically used to manage the transfer of large data files over the Internet. That's why the chances of data breach cant not be denied at this time. For updates on this piece of news and other hot information of the cyber & tech world stay tuned with VOGH. 

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3 Russian Cyber Criminal Who Was The Master Mind of Banking Trojan 'Gozi' Charged in New York

3 Russian Cyber Criminal Who Was The Master Mind of Banking Trojan 'Gozi' Charged in New York 

Yet again another serious issue of cyber crime get resolved when the FBI tracked and figured out the master mind of infamous 'Gozi banking Trojan' which effected more than millions of system world wide, including a handful at NASA, leading to tens of millions of dollars in lost banking funds and damages to computer systems and networks. Three alleged international cyber criminals from Russia, responsible for creating and distributing 'Gozi' that infected over one million computers and caused tens of millions of dollars in losses charged in Manhattan Federal Court. Mihai Ionut Paunescu aged 28, a Romanian, Deniss Calovskis, 27, a Latvian, and Nikita Vladimirovich Kuzmin, 25, of the Russian Federation, are charged with computer intrusion, conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and access device fraud. Federal authorities said the three were arrested last week; Kuzmin is being held in New York, while Paunescu is in custody in Romania and Calovskis in Latvia. 

According to the press release of FBI -Deniss Calovskis, a/k/a “Miami,” a Latvian national who allegedly wrote some of the computer code that made the Gozi virus so effective, was arrested in Latvia in November 2012. Mihai Ionut Paunescu, a/k/a “Virus,” a Romanian national who allegedly ran a “bulletproof hosting” service that enabled cyber criminals to distribute the Gozi virus, the Zeus trojan, and other notorious malware and to conduct other sophisticated cyber crimes, was arrested in Romania in December 2012. 

The cases are being handled by the Complex Frauds Unit of the United States Attorney’s Office. Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah Lai, Nicole Friedlander, and Thomas G.A. Brown, along with Trial Attorney Carol Sipperly of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Department of Justice on the Paunescu case, are in charge of the prosecution. The charges contained in the Indictments are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Defendant	Age and Residence	Charges	Maximum Penalty
Nikita Kuzmin	25; Moscow, Russia	Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; bank fraud; conspiracy to commit access device fraud; access device fraud; conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; computer intrusion	95 years in prison
Deniss Calovskis	27; Riga, Latvia	Conspiracy to commit bank fraud; conspiracy to commit access device fraud; conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; conspiracy to commit wire fraud; conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft	67 years in prison
Mihai Ionut Paunescu	28; Bucharest, Romania	Conspiracy to commit computer intrusion; conspiracy to commit bank fraud; conspiracy to commit wire fraud	60 years in prison

Brief About Gozi:-
The Gozi virus is malicious computer code, or “malware,” that steals personal bank account information, including usernames and passwords, from the users of affected computers. It was named by private sector information security experts in the U.S. who, in 2007, discovered that previously unrecognized malware was stealing personal bank account information from computers across Europe on a vast scale, while remaining virtually undetectable in the computers it infected. To date, the Gozi virus has infected over one million victim computers worldwide, among them at least 40,000 computers in the U.S., including computers belonging to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as well as computers in Germany, Great Britain, Poland, France, Finland, Italy, Turkey, and elsewhere, and it has caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to the individuals, businesses, and government entities whose computers were infected.

The Gozi virus was distributed to victims’ computers in several different ways. In one method, the virus was disguised as an apparently benign .pdf document which, when opened, secretly installed the Gozi virus on the victim’s computer. Once installed, the Gozi virus—which was intentionally designed to be undetectable by anti-virus software—collected data from the infected computer in order to capture personal bank account information including usernames and passwords. That data was then transmitted to various computer servers controlled by the cyber criminals who used the Gozi virus. These cyber criminals then used the personal bank account information to transfer funds out of the victims’ bank accounts and ultimately into their own personal possession.

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"Project Blackstar" Team Ghostshell Leaks 2.5 Million Records From Russian Govt & Individual

"Project Blackstar" Team Ghostshell Leaks 2.5 Million Records From Russian Govt & Individual 

A hacker group calling them selves "Team Ghostshell" who was recently behind the attack several top universities called an open operation declaring war on Russia's cyberspace. The operation is dubbed “Project Blackstar”. In the first phase of the operation  the hacking collective Team Ghostshell posted approximately 2.5 million accounts/records leaked, from governmental, educational, academical, political, law enforcement, telecom, research institutes, medical facilities, large corporations (both national and international branches) in such fields as energy, petroleum, banks, dealerships and many more. The hacker group also claimed to have access "to more russian files than the FSB and we are very much  eager to prove it." - said Ghostshell. The rest of the Pastebin post goes on to call out the Russian government and is littered with references to corruption, capitalism and social injustice. Judging by some of the records released, the Russian Police, along with Novatek, Russia's largest independent natural gas producer, the Alfa Group, an investment consortium and JINR, the country’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, all appear to have been implicated in the alleged leak. Some records appear to include individuals’ usernames and passwords while other documents almost read like resumes, complete with individuals’ names, IP addresses, education and job history.

Above I have discussed the last hack by Team Ghostshell where they had published 120,000 records from some of the world’s top universities. That leak, dubbed “Project WestWind,” sought to “raise awareness towards the changes made in today’s education,“ spilling student and faculty email addresses, passwords and IDs. Now this “Project Blackstar” with a leak of 2.5 million records from several Russian cyber space,  again arising a big doubt, that how much secure our cyber world is? 

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Russian Hacker Behind Cyber Attack on Georgia Caught on His Webcam

Suspected Russian Hacker Behind Cyber Attack on Georgia Caught on His Webcam 

It said that there may be hundred ways to commit crimes but there are chances of one hundred and one times to get busted. Exactly the same things happened for a Russian hacker who was behind the cyber attack against the country of Georgia. Since 2011 Georgia is blaming that few Russian hackers are disturbing their cyber space while attacking its computer networks, injecting malicious code into websites, and planting spyware to steal classified information. After discovering that a cyber-spy was infecting government computers with malware designed to mine important documents, government officials decided to fight fire with fire. They intentionally allowed the malicious software to infect one particular computer, and baited it with a ZIP file called “Georgian-Nato Agreement” — exactly the sort of thing they knew the intruder would be looking for. Instead of important documents, however, the bait file was loaded with the hacker’s own malware. Once the hacker downloaded and opened the file, the software went to work stealing his documents and, best of all, hijacking his webcam to capture clear video of his face. According to the CERT-Georgia report, an analysis of the attack's command-and-control center revealed that at least 390 computers were infected in the attack. 70% of compromised PCs were based in Georgia, with other victims found in the USA, Canada, Ukraine, France, China, Germany and Russia. Computers hit in Georgia were predominantly based in government agencies, banks and critical infrastructure the report claims. 

In a 27 page report, the Georgian government explains in details that, how in early 2011 Georgian news websites were hacked in order to exploit vulnerabilities, and spread malware that hijacked infected computers and searched for sensitive documents. 

According to report by Naked Security- Georgian officials lay a trap. Georgia's CERT deliberately infected one of its own PCs with the malware, and planted a ZIP file named "Georgian-Nato Agreement" on its drive, hoping it would prove irresistible for the hacker. Sure enough the hacker stole the archive file and ran malware that Georgia CERT had planted inside, meaning that now investigators had control over the hacker's own computer. This made it relative child's play to capture images of the suspect at work in front of his PC. The CERT researchers claim that they also found a Russian email conversation on the suspect's computer in which he gives instruction on how to use his malware and infect targets. Furthermore, the suspected hacker's city, ISP, email address and other information were also acquired. Curiously, a domain used by the attackers was registered to an address in Moscow belonging to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, department of logistics - which just happens to be based close to the Russian Secret Service (FSB). Furthermore, according to CERT-Georgia, websites used to control the infected Georgian computers have links with RBN, the notorious Russian Business Network.

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HSBC Comeback Online After Prolonged DDoS Attack From Anonymous

HSBC Comeback Online After Prolonged DDoS Attack From Anonymous 

Massive attack against banking and financial sector continues, this time HSBC became the latest victim of cyber attack. The attack which interrupt the service for 10 hours long were mainly originated from Iran and Russia. After 'Izz ad-Din al Qassam Cyber Fighters' now it was the time for Fawkes Security, an offshoot of hacktivist group Anonymous, quickly took credit for the attack, acknowledging the take down in posts yesterday afternoon on Twitter and Pastebin The group claimed to have knocked HSBC’s main site, along with its US, UK and Canadian counterparts offline and on Friday,claimed it logged 20,000 debit card details from the site while it was down. 

According to HSBC newsroom- "On 18 October 2012 HSBC servers came under a denial of service attack which affected a number of HSBC websites around the world." But HSBC denied any sort of data loss. Fawkes Security claimed to have details of more than 20K cards, but in their release HSBC said "This denial of service attack did not affect any customer data, but did prevent customers using HSBC online services, including internet banking." 

But now the whole situation is under control, websites belonging to British bank and financial services company HSBC are back online and working normally. According to an update posted on its website, HSBC restored all of its websites globally to full accessibility as of 3:00am UK time. 

New York Stock Exchange, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank and PNC was brought down by few hacker collective group as protest against the anti Islamic movie. After this attack the name of HSBC has also been enlisted with those poor victims (affected banks & finance sector) who suffered DDoS attack in last month.

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Most Organized Banking-Trojan Called 'Gozi Prinimalka' By Russian Hackers Targeting U.S. Banks

Most Organized Banking-Trojan Called 'Gozi Prinimalka' By Russian Hackers Targeting U.S. Banks

We all might be aware of massive attack which took place last month, targeted several leading banking and financial sector of United States. The attack came just after 'anti Islamic' video was posted online. The US National Security officials accused the Iranian government for engaging cyber attacks against US Banks mainly Bank of America. Sooner or later the situation came under control. But cloud of trouble for US Banking sector is not gone completely, recently security professionals unveiled that a cartel of Russian hackers is planning to launch a separate attack aimed at stealing money from about 30 U.S. financial institutions, an apparent attempt to piggyback and capitalize on the ongoing cyber attacks on U.S. banks. The emergence of Russian hackers suggests a potential shift in the motivation of the cyber attacks from ideological to financial and also points to a longer duration of the ongoing attacks. Security experts have picked up on chatter in the cyber underworld indicating Russian cyber hackers have set their sights on about 30 U.S. financial institutions. Dubbed “Operation Blitzkrieg,” the attack is planned for this fall on 30 U.S. banks, though it’s not clear which specific institutions will be targeted. In a blog post last week, RSA said it “believes this is the making of the most substantial organized banking-Trojan operation seen to date.”

So far it’s not clear who the specific Russian hackers are, but famous security professional & blogger Brian Krebs pointed to series of posts beginning in early September on Underweb forums by a Russian hacker who uses the nickname “vorVzakone,” which translates to “thief in law.” RSA said “underground chatter” indicates the gang plans to deploy a Trojan, called “Gozi Prinimalka,” in an effort to complete fraudulent wire transfers via Man-In-The-Middle (MiTM) manual session-hacking scenarios. Herberger said MiTM is a type of attack that aims to deceive targets by violating otherwise secure communications, similar to tapping into a landline phone conversation or breaching a VPN session. “If successfully launched, the full force of this mega heist may only be felt by targeted banks in a month or two,” RSA said. The Trojan is part of a family of malware used by a crime gang that has successfully siphoned at least $5 million from banks, RSA said. The Russian hackers are also offering to pay individuals who help them carry out the attacks, indicating a desire to monetize the intrusions.

So now the vows of hacker group named 'Izz ad-Din al Qassam Cyber Fighters' is proving to be more dangerous for US. The hacker group earlier said "These series of attacks will continue until the Erasing of that nasty movie from the Internet". For your reminder this hacker group was responsible for all the major DDoS attacks against US financial sector. “It’s not uncommon that people who have a financial motive may try to take advantage of nefarious techniques,” said Herberger. “They will jump in because they can take advantage of the fact banks are laboring and security departments are becoming overrun and softened for a different kind of motivated attack.” The emergence of the threat from Russian groups underscores the prolonged nature of the attacks against corporations, especially in the financial industry. “Security teams are coming to terms that these attacks are long,” often measured in days and weeks, said Herberger. However, security teams often aren’t “staffed for attrition.”

-Source (FOX Business)

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Russian Hacker 'Dmitry Zubakha' Arrested For DDoS Attacks on Amazon, eBay & Priceline

Russian Hacker 'Dmitry Zubakha' Arrested For DDoS Attacks on Amazon, eBay & Priceline

A twenty five years old hacker from Russia get arrested for allegedly perforimg two massive DDoS (Denial-of-Service) attacks on one of the most popular online shopping site Amazon.com and eBay in 2008. Dmitry Olegovich Zubakha also known as "Cyber bandit" in most of the hacker's underground community was indicted in 2011, but he was just arrested in Cyprus on Wednesday. The arrest of Zubakha took place under an international warrant and  currently he is in custody pending extradition to the United States. According to the indictment unsealed on Thursday said- Zubakha, with the help of another Russian hacker planned and executed DDoS attacks against Amazon.com, eBay, and Priceline in the middle of 2008. Zubakha and his co-conspirator launched the attack with the help of a DDoS botnet to generate a large number of traffic which interrupts the normal service of those online shopping sites. According to a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the attacks made it "difficult for Amazon customers to complete their business on line."

He has been charged by law enforcement for stealing more than 28,000 credit cards in 2009 for that reason, Zubakha and his partner are also charged with aggravated identity theft for illegally using the credit card of at least one person. At present the charges in the indictment conspiracy, intentionally causing damage toa protected computer resulting in a loss of more than $5000, possession of more than 15 unauthorized access devices (credit card numbers), and aggravated identity theft are just allegations. Zubakha faces up to five years in prison for conspiracy, up to teh years in prison and a $250,000 fine for intentionally causing damage to a protected computer, up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine for possessing unauthorized access devices, and an additional two years in prison for aggravated identity theft. 

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