Showing posts sorted by relevance for query cyber attacks. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query cyber attacks. Sort by date Show all posts

FBI Started National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2012

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 10/03/2012 04:37:00 am

FBI Started National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2012

Last week the  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a report based on information from law enforcement and complaints submitted to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) detailing recent cyber crime trends and new twists to previously-existing cyber scams. As you all know that the Month of October is celebrated as National Cyber Security Awareness Month for last nine years. This year also FBI declared the October as National Cyber Security Awareness Month 2012. According to the official blog of FBI - the threat has continued to grow even more complex and sophisticated. Just 12 days ago, in fact, FBI Director Robert Mueller said that “cyber security may well become our highest priority in the years to come.” 

For its part, the FBI is strengthening its cyber operations to sharpen its focus on the greatest cyber threats to national security: computer intrusions and network attacks. We are enhancing the technological capabilities of all investigative personnel and hiring additional computer scientists to provide expert technical support to critical investigations. We are creating two distinct task forces in each field office: Cyber Task Forces, focused on intrusions and network attacks that will draw on our existing cyber squads; and Child Exploitation Task Forces, focused on crimes against children. We are also increasing the size and scope of the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force—the FBI-led multi-agency focal point for coordinating and sharing cyber threat information to stop current and future attacks.

The FBI also runs several other cyber-related programs, including the Innocent Images National Initiative—which combats online child predators—and the Internet Crime Complaint Center—a partnership between the Bureau and the National White Collar Crime Center that serves as a clearinghouse for triaging cyber complaints and provides an easy-to-use online tool for reporting these complaints.

Because of the interconnectedness of online systems, every American who uses digital technologies at home or in the office can—and must—play a part in cyber security. For example, if you open a virus-laden e-mail attachment at work, you could infect your entire company’s computer network. Don’t be the weakest link: get educated on cyber safety.

Here are a few basic steps you can take to be more secure:

  • Set strong passwords, and don’t share them with anyone.
  • Keep a clean machine—your operating system, browser, and other critical software are optimized by installing regular updates.
  • Maintain an open dialogue with your family, friends, and community about Internet safety.
  • Limit the amount of personal information you post online, and use privacy settings to avoid sharing information widely.
  • Be cautious about what you receive or read online—if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.


Visit the links below for more tips on protecting your computers and other electronic devices, information on cyber threats, and details on how to report cyber crimes or scams:



For more information:






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President Obama & Congress Will Issue Long Awaited Executive Cyber Security Order

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/12/2013 07:05:00 pm

President Obama & Congress Will Issue Long Awaited Executive Cyber Security Order 

Last week we reported that Pentagon has declared that they are moving toward a major expansion of its cyber security force to counter increasing attacks on the nation’s computer networks, as well as to expand offensive computer operations on foreign adversaries. Just one week after this declaration another crucial movement came from the U.S. government.  A secret legal review on the use of America’s growing arsenal of cyber weapons has concluded that President Obama has the broad power to order a pre-emptive strike if the United States detects credible evidence of a major digital attack looming from abroad. According to sources President Barack Obama will issue a long-awaited cyber security executive order this week. Two former White House officials told the publication that the order is expected to be released after Tuesday night's State of the Union address. 
Given his status as commander-in-chief, Obama seems to be the clear choice, but since cyber warfare is such a new and unknown thing, the government hasn't actually figured out the rules of engagement yet. In the past couple of decades, the power to use America's cyber weapons has been shared between the Pentagon and the various intelligence agencies. With the exception of a series of strikes on the computer systems that run Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities an attack that Obama ordered himself the U.S. hasn't launched any major cyber attacks in recent memory, however. This probably won't be the case in the future. So the government is working on new rules of engagement, as it realizes that the capabilities of cyber weapons are evolving at a startling rate. The rules will be not unlike the set that governs how drone attacks are ordered and who orders them. Cyber warfare certainly stands to affect the average American more, though.  On Capitol Hill this week, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) and Rep. Mike Rodgers (R-Mich.) are set to reintroduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) during a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
According to an exclusive report the bill would allow the government to share classified cyber threats with the private sector so that those companies can then protect their systems from cyber attacks. The bill was killed last year due to privacy concerns. Civil-liberty groups argued that the bill allows companies to exchange too much personal information back and forth without regulation. 







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Top 5 DDoS Attacks of 2011, Exclusive Report By Corero Network Security

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 10/09/2011 04:42:00 pm

Corero Network Security (cns:LN), the leader in on-premises Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Defense Systems for enterprises, data centers and hosting providers, named its list of 2011's Top 5 DDoS attacks. Corero's findings show an increase in newer, intelligent application-layer DDoS attacks that are extremely difficult to identify "in the cloud," and often go undetected until it is too late. Corero also found an uptick in attacks against corporations by "hactivists" DDoS-ing sites for political and ideological motives, rather than financial gain. Attacks against Mastercard, Visa, Sony, PayPal and the CIA top Corero's list.
"The cat-and-mouse game between IT administrators, criminals and hactivists has intensified in 2011 as the number of application-layer DDoS attacks has exploded. Coupled with an increase in political and ideological hactivism, companies have to be extremely diligent in identifying and combating attempts to disable their websites, steal proprietary information and to deface their web applications, " said Mike Paquette, chief strategy officer, Corero Network Security.

Corero's 2011 Top 5 DDoS Attacks:-

1. Anonymous DDoS Attacks on WikiLeaks "Censors" Visa, MasterCard and PayPal. The most significant DDoS attack so far this year, the WikiLeaks-related DDoS attacks on Visa, MasterCard and PayPal were both Anonymous' "coming out" party, and the first widespread example of what has been dubbed "cyber rioting" on the Internet, with virtual passersby joining in the attack voluntarily.

2. Sony PlayStation Network DDoS. A shocking wake-up call for many gamers, customers and investors, the Sony Playstation Network DDoS attack began a series of cyber attacks and data breaches that damaged Sony financially and hurt its reputation.

3. CIA and SOCA Hit by LulzSec DDoS Attacks. The appearance of LulzSec on the cyber attack scene, highlighted by bold DDoS attacks on the CIA and the U.K. Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), made us wonder if anyone was safe on the Internet.

4. WordPress DDoS. A massive DDoS attack disrupted one of the world's largest blog hosts--some 18 million websites. The huge attack hit the company's data centers with tens of millions of packets per second.

5. Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This DDoS attack had a major impact on the financial world, disrupting stock market trading in Hong Kong. This was a highly leveraged DDoS attack, potentially affecting hundreds of companies and individuals through a single target.

For all the pain and suffering DDoS attacks have caused, there are a number of best practices that companies can implement to reduce their risk. The most effective defense against DDoS attacks requires expert preparation of defensive resources, ongoing vigilance and a rapid, organized response.

-News Source (Corero Network Security)


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FBI's Cybercrime Unit Taken New Initiative to Nab Hackers & Intruders

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 10/31/2012 06:09:00 am

FBI's Cybercrime Unit Taken New Initiative to Nab Hackers & Intruders 

The month of October has been declared by FBI as the National Cyber Security Awareness Month of 2012 , and in the last week of this month the cyber crime division of FBI has started a new program which will specially emphasis on hackers and intrusion. The main aim of this program is to focusing on hackers and to prevent cyber crime. Last month  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a report based on information from law enforcement and complaints submitted to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) detailing recentcyber crime trends and new twists to previously-existing cyber scams. Now the recent movement of FBI will surely inject fear into the heart & mind of hackers. According to FBI's official release - Early last year, hackers were discovered embedding malicious software in two million computers, opening a virtual door for criminals to rifle through users’ valuable personal and financial information. Last fall, an overseas crime ring was shut down after infecting four million computers, including half a million in the U.S. In recent months, some of the biggest companies and organizations in the U.S. have been working overtime to fend off continuous intrusion attacks aimed at their networks. The scope and enormity of the threat—not just to private industry but also to the country’s heavily networked critical infrastructure—was spelled out last month in Director Robert S. Mueller’s testimony to a Senate homeland security panel: “Computer intrusions and network attacks are the greatest cyber threat to our national security.”
To that end, the FBI over the past year has put in place an initiative to uncover and investigate web-based intrusion attacks and develop a cadre of specially trained computer scientists able to extract hackers’ digital signatures from mountains of malicious code. Agents are cultivating cyber-oriented relationships with the technical leads at financial, business, transportation, and other critical infrastructures on their beats. 

Today, investigators in the field can send their findings to specialists in the FBI Cyber Division’s Cyber Watch command at Headquarters, who can look for patterns or similarities in cases. The 24/7 post also shares the information with partner intelligence and law enforcement agencies—like the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and the National Security Agency—on the FBI-led National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force.
A key aim of the Next Generation Cyber Initiative has been to expand our ability to quickly define “the attribution piece” of a cyber attack to help determine an appropriate response, said Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the Bureau’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. “The attribution piece is: who is conducting the attack or the exploitation and what is their motive,” McFeely explained. “In order to get to that, we’ve got to do all the necessary analysis to determine who is at the other end of the keyboard perpetrating these actions.”
The Cyber Division’s main focus now is on cyber intrusions, working closely with the Bureau’s Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence Divisions.  “We are obviously concerned with terrorists using the Internet to conduct these types of attacks,” McFeely said. “As the lead domestic intelligence agency within the United States, it’s our job to make sure that businesses’ and the nation’s secrets don’t fall into the hands of adversaries.”
In the Coreflood case in early 2011, hackers enlisted a botnet—a network of infected computers—to do their dirty work. McFeely urged everyone connected to the Internet to be vigilant against computer viruses and malicious code, lest they become victims or unwitting pawns in a hacker or web-savvy terrorist’s malevolent scheme.
“It’s important that everybody understands that if you have a computer that is outward-facing—that it’s connected to the web—that your computer is at some point going to be under attack,” he said. “You need to be aware of the threat and you need to take it seriously.” 


To Listen the Podcast of FBI's "“The intrusions are occurring 24/7, 365 days a year.” Click Here






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Leading US Banking & Financial Sector Suffering From Massive DDoS Attack

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/30/2012 03:50:00 pm

Leading US Banking & Financial Sector Suffering From Massive DDoS Attack 

Few days ago in a report we said that US National Security officials accused the Iranian government for engaging cyber attacks against US Banks. The attack came just after 'anti Islamic' video was posted online. Attacks against the websites of leading banks in the United States have the banking and financial services industry on edge. The Financial Services ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center) set its Threat Level to “High” on Wednesday, September 19, indicating a high risk of cyber attacks. Attacks against the websites of leading banks in the United States have the banking and financial services industry on edge. A Muslim hacking group calling itself Izz ad-Din al Qassam Cyber Fighters took responsibility for attacks on the New York Stock Exchange, Bank of America and Chase last week. This week brought attacks against Wells Fargo, US Bank and PNC. Wells Fargo used its Twitter account to apologize for service interruptions on Wednesday and said it was working to "quickly resolve this issue." Most of the targeted banks were back online and operational Thursday. The events prompted U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to use an interview on C-SPAN to point the finger of blame at the Iranian government and its elite Quds Force.
Wheather it is Iran Govt or that hacker group 'Izz ad-Din al Qassam Cyber Fighters' but the main issue of concern is that the Banking and financial sector has been highly disturbed since last few weeks. Though the situation came under control at last Thursday but still experts are predicting that this ongoing cyber attack is not over yet. In their statement the hacker group vows to engage more attack. "These series of attacks will continue until the Erasing of that nasty movie from the Internet," said the hacker.


-Source (Naked Security) 





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DSH is Taking Anonymous More Seriously & Issued A Security Bulletin To Warn About The Upcoming Cyber Threats

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/05/2011 02:57:00 pm



The Department of Homeland Security is beginning to take Anonymous and other non-professional cyber-attackers more seriously as it issues a warning about potential attacks.
The United States Department of Homeland Security warned the security community about potential attacks from hacking collective Anonymous over the next few months. The Sept. 2 security bulletin from the DHS National Cyber-Security and Communications Integration Center warned financial services companies to be on the lookout for attackers operating under the Anonymous umbrella to "solicit ideologically dissatisfied, sympathetic employees" to the cause. The collective recently took to Twitter to persuade employees within the financial sector to hand over information and access to enterprise networks. Though such attempts may have been unsuccessful so far, "unwilling coercion through embarrassment or blackmail may be a risk to personnel," the DHS bulletin warned.
DHS issued the bulletin primarily for cyber-security professionals and staff in charge of protecting critical infrastructure. The bulletin also refer to new tools that Anonymous may be using in launching future attacks. Anonymous has been primarily using the Low Orbit Ion Cannon, a fairly simple testing software that can ping a server repeatedly, to launch its distributed denial of service attacks. Some of the members have been working on a new DDoS tool, based on JavaScript,  dubbed #RefRef.

The new attack tool is said to be capable of using the server's own resources and processing power to launch a denial of service attack against itself, but "so far it's unclear what the true capabilities of #RefRef are," the DHS said in the bulletin. The tool is slated to be released Sept. 17.
DHS also referenced the "Apache Killer" Perl script that can be used to launch denial of service attacks against Web servers running the popular Apache software. Apache developers released a patch earlier this week to fix the vulnerability in Apache 2.2. Administrators have been urged to patch their servers immediately.

The DHS also mentioned three cyber-attacks and civil protests Anonymous has already announced. "Occupy Wall Street" is the first scheduled one, for Sept. 17. Announced by a group Adbusters in July and actively supported by Anonymous, the goal is to get 20,000 individuals to gather on Wall Street to protest various U.S. government policies. Similar rallies targeting financial districts are being planned in Madrid, Milan, London, Paris and San Francisco.
Another protest in October, also led by Adbusters, is scheduled to be held at the Washington, D.C. National Mall to mark the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. There is also the supposed Nov. 11 attack against Facebook and Project Mayhem, scheduled for Dec. 21, 2012, DHS warned. There are indications that Project Mayhem would be a combination of physical disruption and targeting of information systems.

The bulletin itself is unusual in that DHS hasn't commented on the activities of Anonymous ever since the group stepped up its efforts over the past few months, attacking federal agencies and private corporations to protest a wide range of issues. As anyone following the security space undoubtedly knows, there have been at least one or two attacks by Anonymous, even more, each week for the past few months, so the bulletin may be just stating the obvious when warning of future potential attacks.
"Anonymous has shown through recently reported incidents that it has members who have relatively more advanced technical capabilities who can also marshal large numbers of willing, but less technical, participants for DDOS activities," the DHS said.

-News Source (e-Week)

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Twitter Hacked, More Than 250,000 User Data Compromised

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/03/2013 01:55:00 am

Twitter Hacked, More Than 250,000 User Data Compromised

The social networking giant and the world famous micro blogging site Twitter again fallen victim of cyber attack. Last year we have seen that the tight security system if twitter have been compromised many times. Yet again in this year the San Francisco based social media giant who have more than 500 million registered users failed to protect them selves from hackers. On last Friday Twitter acknowledged that it had become the latest victim in a number of cyber-attacks against media companies, saying hackers may have gained access to information on 250,000 of its more than 200 million active users. The micro blogging giant said in a blog posting that earlier this week it detected attempts to gain access to its user data. It shut down one attack moments after it was detected. According to reports usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted passwords for 250,000 users might have been accessed in what it described as a “sophisticated attack” 

"This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident,” said Bob Lord, Twitter’s director of information security. “The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organisations have also been recently similarly attacked” Bob added. 

Jim Prosser, a Twitter spokesman, would not say how hackers infiltrated Twitter’s systems, but Twitter’s blog post said hackers had broken in through a well-publicized vulnerability in Oracle’s Java software. Last month, after a security researcher exposed a serious vulnerability in the software, though Oracle patched the security hole, but Homeland Security said the fix was not sufficient. The DHS issued a rare alert that warned users to disable Java on their computers. Prosser said Twitter was working with government and federal law enforcement to track down the source of the attacks. For now, he said the company had reset passwords for, and notified, every compromised user. The company encouraged users to practice good password hygiene, which typically means coming up with different passwords for different sites, and using long passwords that cannot be found in the dictionary.
Twitter said it “hashed” passwords — which involves mashing up users’ passwords with a mathematical algorithm — and “salted” those, meaning it appended random digits to the end of each hashed password to make it more difficult, but not impossible, for hackers to crack. Once cracked, passwords can be valuable on auction-like black market sites where a single password can fetch $20.

While talking about Twitter and cyber issues, I would like to remind you that in last year twitter faced several cyber attacks where more than 55,000 twitter account details was leaked, after this issue in the middle of last year the social networking giant faced massive denial of service which interrupted its services. Later a huge number of Twitter users across the globe received  emails warning that their account have been compromised and their passwords had been reset, and it was another security breach which affected twitter. Such big organization are not at all careless about security, so as twitter and it has been proved when they hired renowned white hat hacker Charlie Miller to boost up their security, but after this current massacre, it seems that twitter need to think more and emphasize a lot to make sure that their system is good enough to prevent cyber attacks. For all the hot cyber updates and reviews stay tuned with VOGH.


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FBI is ramping Up Cyber-Attack Defense

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/10/2011 03:45:00 pm



The FBI has been called to investigate cyber attacks at Google and Sony in the past week, incidents that shed light on "the ever-present danger from sophisticated Internet attack," FBI Director Robert Mueller said intestimony Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee."Along with countless other cyber incidents, these attacks threaten to undermine the integrity of the Internet and to victimize the businesses and people who rely on it," he said.The hearing, a video of which is available online, was focused on President Obama's request to extend Mueller's term as director until 2013. The director gave an opening statement on threats facing the intelligence organization and how it's working to combat them, and then fielded questions from the committee.
Mueller cited cyber attacks as one of the FBI's top challenges in the next 10 years, and said the agency needs to step up efforts to combat them, something it's currently working on."The increase of cyber as a mechanism for conducting all sorts of crimes--and also it being a highway to extracting our most sensitive secrets or extracting IP from our commerce" is a key concern, he said. "We as an organization need to continue to grow the capability of addressing that arena in the future."In addition to addressing growing cybersecurity needs, Mueller cited other technology-focused priorities of the organization during his testimony. One is the use of the Internet for terrorist cells to communicate, organize, and radicalize new terrorists, something the FBI is aimed at stifling, he said."In the age of the Internet, these radicalizing figures no longer need to meet or speak personally with those they seek to influence," Mueller said. "Instead, they conduct their media campaigns from remote regions of the world, intent on fostering terrorism by lone actors here in the United States."Another concern Mueller said he will continue to work on is his quest for the intelligence agency to expand its wiretapping capability to avoid a problem known as "going dark." The term refers to situations in which the agency has legal authorization to obtain Internet communications but cannot do so in a timely fashion due to a company's lack of technology to get the information quickly and efficiently.An increase in high-profile and sophisticated cyber attacks in the United States is pushing the FBI to bolster its ability to fight cybercrime and foster stronger cybersecurity, its director told Congress this week.

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Japan Developing ‘seek and destroy’ Virus To Combat Cyber Attacks

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 1/04/2012 01:05:00 am



The Japanese Ministry of Defence is in the process of creating software which will enable it to observe cyber attacks and defend against them. According to sources the three-year $2.3 million project was outsourced to Japanese technology firm named Fujitsu. It said that best is a good offence so Fujitsu is developing a ‘seek and destroy’ virus for the Japanese government, one that it hopes will identify and combat cyber attacks. Already U.S. and China have put similar countermeasures in place. Japan has faced a tough time in online security in the recent past, with numerous cyber attacks in 2011 that crippled everything from local government portals, to the parliament, Biggest Defense Contractor Mitsubishi and so on. 
$2.3 million project is still ongoing, and for now, the virus is still in closed environment testing stages. Relevantly, the country would have to make amendments to its laws to allow for the manufacture of the ethical virus, with all virus development still an illegal activity.




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Iran Preparing Stronger Cyber Defense

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/20/2012 09:38:00 pm

Iran Preparing Stronger Cyber Defense 

While looking at the rise of cyber crime not only US and UK also Iran is preparing a strong cyber defense. According to the Iran's Press TV report - During the recent years cyber security has been high on the agenda in Iran. Tehran says that the reason for its special attention towards the issue is due to the growing number of attacks on Iran’s cyber space by US and Israel. That’s why the first national conference on cyber security kicked off in Iran’s interior ministry. The event which hosted high ranking executive and defense officials and experts, aimed at discussing ways to further strengthen the Iranian cyber space against any attacks.
Less than four months ago Iran launched a cyber defense headquarters with the help of its defense and communications ministries. The office categorizes Iran’s national assets to three parts including physical, human and cyber assets. The headquarters says that its responsibility is to protect the three categories with special emphasis on the country’s cyber assets.
Experts say that lack of enough security in a country’s cyber space is like sleeping in a house without locking the door. In 2009 some of Iran’s Uranium enrichment facilities were targeted by a computer worm called Stuxnet. Blaming the US and Israel, Iran managed to neutralize the cyber attack. In 2011 Iran’s nuclear program comes under another cyber threat with ‘Duqu'. Also hacker collective group Anonymous targeted Iran while performing massive DDoS attack on the 1st may last year.
The main task of cyber defense is to prevent computer worms or as some call it cyber weapons from breaking into or stealing data from the countries maximum security networks. These areas include nuclear facilities, power plants, data centers and banks. Iran has also established its own laws and definitions of cyber crime. Today there are several laws in dealing with the issue and a special branch of the police force is dedicated to patrolling Iran’s cyber space.



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Hackers May Ruin The World Oil Supply System

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/09/2011 04:11:00 pm



In an exclusive report William Hardy siad Cyber attacks could wreck world oil supply. Hackers are bombarding the world's computer controlled energy sector, conducting industrial espionage and threatening potential global havoc through oil supply disruption. Oil company executives warned that attacks were becoming more frequent and more carefully planned. 
"If anybody gets into the area where you can control opening and closing of valves, or release valves, you can imagine what happens," said Ludolf Luehmann, an IT manager at Shell Europe's biggest company .
"It will cost lives and it will cost production, it will cost money, cause fires and cause loss of containment, environmental damage - huge, huge damage," he told the World Petroleum Congress in Doha.
Computers control nearly all the world's energy production and distribution in systems that are increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks that could put cutting-edge fuel production technology in rival company hands. "We see an increasing number of attacks on our IT systems and information and there are various motivations behind it - criminal and commercial," said Luehmann. "We see an increasing number of attacks with clear commercial interests, focusing on research and development, to gain the competitive advantage." He said the Stuxnet computer worm discovered in 2010, the first found that was specifically designed to subvert industrial systems, changed the world of international oil companies because it was the first visible attack to have a significant impact on process control. But the determination and stamina shown by hackers when they attack industrial systems and companies has now stepped up a gear, and there has been a surge in multi-pronged attacks to break into specific operation systems within producers, he said. "Cyber crime is a huge issue. It's not restricted to one company or another it's really broad and it is ongoing," said Dennis Painchaud, director of International Government Relations at Canada's Nexen Inc. "It is a very significant risk to our business."
"It's something that we have to stay on top of every day. It is a risk that is only going to grow and is probably one of the preeminent risks that we face today and will continue to face for some time."
Luehmann said hackers were increasingly staging attack over long periods, silently collecting information over weeks or months before attacking specific targets within company operations with the information they have collected over a long period. "It's a new dimension of attacks that we see in Shell," he said.




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German National Cyber Security Centre is under Cyber Attacks

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/24/2011 02:12:00 pm


Just a few weeks after German authorities opened a national Cyber Defense Centre in Bonn, it was attacked by hackers and now officials are struggling to arrest all of those involved.
While security authorities reported they had arrested two members of the hacking group linked to the attacks, the group released a statement saying that only its leader was under arrest. A 23-year-old calling himself Darkhammer, leader of the so-called "n0n4m3 cr3w", was arrested on Sunday, the Office of Criminal Investigation in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen reported.

The Federal Criminal Police office issued a press release saying that it had searched the apartment of a second suspect. Responding to that arrest and media reports regarding those taken into custody, the hacking group said: "Apparently none of the suspects is a member of the No Name Crew."
Members of the No Name Crew had claimed responsibility for infiltrating computers of the federal police and the customs service. They were able to steal information from servers running the spy program Patras, and put it on their website. Patras is used by customs authorities, the federal police and police in the German states for tracking serious criminals. After the attacks were uncovered several federal and state authorities temporarily shut down their servers.
The attacks first became known already on July 8, but attracted bigger attention just after German newspaper Bild am Sonntag cited a confidential report by the federal information security agency, BSI, saying that computers of the federal police had been infected by Trojans for months without detection.
The hacking group now offers an encrypted file for downloading on its website stating that it had collected emails and confidential data from the police and customs authorities. The group said it would release the password for the encrypted file should police arrest more of the group's members.

"The terrifying fact about these attacks is that the delinquents are quite young. If these 17 year old schoolboys are able to do that, what would happen if a much more experienced hacker would attack?" said Lars Sobiraj, editor-in-chief at the German magazine gulli who interviewed members of the group.
In the interview, members of the group said they regarded their hacking as a wake-up call for the German public to see that the state kept the population under permanent surveillance. The group announced on its website that it will initiate more attacks. "New targets have been chosen," it said.

The attacks came just four weeks after German Federal Secretary of the Interior Hans-Peter Friedrich opened the Cyber Defense Centre. The centre is run by the BSI, the federal office for the protection of the constitution and the disaster control agency. The authorities whose systems were attacked also contribute to the operation of the centre.
A spokesman of the BSI, said that the agency would not comment about the events due to the ongoing investigations.

The centre against cyberattacks has been criticised for not having the ability to fight electronic attacks. After its opening in June, Memet Kilic, a member of the Green party that is part of the opposition, said the centre did not have enough financial and human resources. According to the BSI, the centre has 10 full time employees.
In an interview with the news magazine "Der Spiegel" this week, Klaus Jansen, leader of the German union of police detectives, said that security authorities do not have enough experts working with them to effectively fighting cybercrime.

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Cyber-Attack on US Natural Gas Pipeline Companies Network, Said DHS

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/10/2012 04:03:00 pm

Cyber-Attack on US Natural Gas Pipeline Companies Network, Said DHS

In a report Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said a major cyber attack is currently under way aimed squarely at computer networks belonging to US natural gas pipeline companies. DHS has issued at least three confidential warnings at the second highest alert level (Amber) to natural gas suppliers, giving a detailed warning of a wave of attacks. But the wave of cyber attacks, which apparently began four months ago – and may also affect Canadian natural gas pipeline companies – is continuing. That fact was reaffirmed late Friday in a public, albeit less detailed, "incident response" report from the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), an arm of DHS based in Idaho Falls, Idaho. It reiterated warnings in the earlier confidential alerts made directly to pipeline companies and some power companies. The attacks are said to have been carried out using spear-phishing techniques, in which criminals use specially crafted virus-infected emails to target specific company employees. 
Approximately 200,000 miles of these interstate natural gas transmission pipelines in the US supply 25 percent of the nation's energy. Pipeline safety has been a major issue in recent years, highlighted by the San Bruno, Calif. In Friday's public warning, ICS-CERT reaffirms that its "analysis of the malware and artifacts associated with these cyber attacks has positively identified this activity as related to a single campaign from a single source." It goes on to broadly describe a sophisticated "spear-phishing" campaign – an approach in which cyber attackers attempt to establish digital beachheads within corporate networks.




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Chinese Hackers Were Responsible For Cyber-Espionage In India, Japan & Tibet

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/03/2012 02:02:00 pm

Chinese Hackers Were Responsible For Cyber-Espionage In India, Japan & Tibet  

Tokyo based computer security firm Trend Micro confirmed that a breach of computers belonging to companies in Japan and India and to Tibetan activists has been linked to a former graduate student at a Chinese university  putting a face on the persistent espionage by Chinese hackers against foreign companies and groups. Chinese hackers have been linked to a cyber-espionage campaign that planted data-gathering malware in a total of 233 computers of Tibetan activists and military and industrial entities in Japan and India. The so-called "Luckycat" campaign has been active since at least June 2011 and has been linked to 90 attacks that use malware tailored for each victim. The hackers targeted military research institutions and shipping companies in India; energy, engineering and aerospace entities in China and 30 computers of Tibetan activists. Trend Micro researchers traced the attacks to an e-mail address used to register a command-and-control server. They also mapped the address to a Chinese instant messaging screen name and from there to an online alias, "scuhkr." The espionage has been going on for at least 10 months and is continuing. The attacks are technically similar to a spy operation known as the Shadow Network, which since 2009 has targeted the Indian government and also pilfered a year's worth of the Dalai Lama's personal e-mails. 
Few days ago the director of National Security Agency (NSA) General Keith Alexander confirmed that hackers from China was responsible for the serious attack on one of the leading IT security & cyber security company RSA. Also in 2011 China was responsible behind the attack on US Chamber of Commerce, Satellite System of U.S, Nortel Network & so on.  But few days ago National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center of China (CNCERT/CC), China's primary computer security monitoring network claimed that China fallen victim of one of biggest cyber attacks originated from US, Japan & South Korea. We must have to say that this statement is truly irrelevant. Cyber crime investigator have found that China was directly responsible for the hack into Japan's Biggest Defense Contractor Mitsubishi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) & Parliament of Japan. In case of South Korea  more than 13 Million of MapleStory players data has been stolen, there also hackers from China was responsible. Now this report Trend Micro again proves China has became one of the biggest cyber threat in front of the whole world. The past activities are clearly indicating that hackers from China was directly linked and responsible for all those biggest cyber espionage. Still it is not clear that whether these cyber criminals are supported by the Govt. or not!!



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Threat of cyber attacks growing

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/11/2011 05:34:00 pm


South Africa is a potential target of cyber attacks and the threat is growing, a security analyst said on Tuesday in Sandton during the ITWeb Security Summit.

Anthony Olivier said cybercrime was getting more sophisticated with increased risk of attacks risk of attacks and that the business community must invest more in data protection.

“Information security is not just about business – it’s an undercover war. What’s relevant in South Africa is that there’s a fight for resources,” said Olivier.

He said that with South Africa now a member of the bloc of emerging economies, Brics, cyber security is now of paramount importance.

“The fact we’ve been invited to Brics is being seen that South Africa is key to the national interests of large superpowers, and this has an impact on cyber security,” he said.

The security expert said the country was now entering a dangerous cybercrime environment and organisations needed to recognise the importance of information security and consequently take a risk-based approach.

South Africa’s entrance into the four member block of Brazil, India, Russia and China wouldnow expose local businesses to increased risks.

Consulting firm Deloitte’s latest cybercrime report reveals that the growth of this threat has outpaced that of other cyber security threats. In many cases, organisations don’t even know when their valuable information had been stolen.

According to Deloitte, data was more valuable than money.

“Once spent, money is gone but data can be used and reused to produce more money. The ability to reuse data to access online banking applications, authorise and activate credit cards, or access organisational networks, has enabled cyber criminals to create an extensive archive of data for ongoing illicit activities,” says the report.

The two day security summit is being attended by business managers, CIOs and chief IT security officers who are discussing the current and future information security threat landscape.

This year’s event highlights the dangers of a connected world. These include cloud security, web services and online security, as well as the growing trend to use malicious code for industrial espionage and sabotage.

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Security Experts are saying that China at Risk From Cyber Attacks

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/18/2011 05:34:00 pm



A report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revealed that software systems used by China to run its weapons, utilities and chemical plants systems suffer from an inherent bug, leaving them vulnerable to hacker's cyber attacks. The report, which was first disclosed to Reuters, saw the department warn China over the vulnerabilities in its software. The software was designed by Beijing-based Sunway Force Control Technology Co. According to the department, hackers could exploit the bug to inflict an attack that could cause lasting damage on critical parts of the country's infrastructure.

Dillon Beresford, a researcher for NSS Labs -- the private security firm that discovered the bugs -- commented to Reuters, "These are vulnerabilities that hackers could leverage to cause destruction".The department's advice comes in the wake of numerous cyber attacks against several big-name companies and government departments and agencies. Sunway's products, widely used in China, are also deployed to a lesser extent in other countries including the United States, DHS's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team said in its advisory  Since its advice, Sunway has reportedly  developed software patches to plug the security holes. Experts have since revealed that even with these fixes, it will take the software's users weeks, maybe months to install the new security fixes. In this month alone there have been reports of successful attacks on Citibank, The International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Senate and CIA.  The news comes a month after public attention turned to China after the search giant Google reported a hacking attempt on its Gmail email service. China was widely expected of involvement in the attack after Google traced the origin of the hackers to one of the country's provinces. There is as yet no firm date when the security fixes will be fully functional. Sunway's products, while most widely used in China, are also used by certain Western companies.  

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PandaLabs Exclusive Report: Privacy Violations Will Be The Biggest Security Threat in 2012

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/17/2011 12:47:00 pm



Panda Security anti-malware laboratory, today announced its predictions for top security trends to watch for in the coming year. Cyber-espionage, along with privacy violations and social networking attacks facilitated by the increased use of mobile and tablet devices, will be the source of increased security threats over the coming months.
Cyber-espionage targeting companies and government agencies around the world will dominate corporate and national information security landscapes, with the integrity of classified and other protected information on the line. Trojans are expected to be the weapon of choice for hackers focused on these highly-sensitive targets.
According to Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs, “We live in a world where all information is in digital form and is easily accessible if you know how. Today’s spies no longer need to infiltrate a building to steal information. As long as they have the necessary computer skills, they can wreak havoc and access even the best-kept secrets of organizations without ever leaving their homes.”
Consumers will continue to be targeted by cyber-criminals as they find ever more sophisticated ways to target social media sites for stealing personal data. Social engineering techniques exploiting users’ naïveté have become the weapon of choice for hackers targeting personally-identifiable information. “Social networking sites provide a space where users feel safe as they interact with friends and family. The problem is that attackers are creating malware that takes advantage of that false sense of security to spread their creations,” says Corrons. “It is very easy for cyber-criminals to trick users with generic messages like ‘Look, you’re on this video,’ for example. Sometimes, curiosity can be our own worst enemy.”

Summary of what PandaLabs predicts as the major security trends of 2012:-

  • Mobile Malware:- A year ago, PandaLabs predicted a surge in cyber attacks on mobile phones, and the fact that Android has become the number one mobile target for cyber-crooks in 2011 confirms that prediction. That trend will continue in 2012, with a new focus on mobile payment methods using Near-Field Communications (NFC) as these applications become increasingly popular.
  • Malware for Tablets:- Since tablets share the same operating system as smartphones, they are likely be targeted by the same malware. In addition, tablets might draw a special interest from cyber-crooks since people are using them for an increasing number of activities and are more likely to store sensitive data.
  • Mac Malware:- As the market share of Mac users continues to grow, the number of threats will grow as well. Fortunately, Mac users are now more aware that they are not immune to malware attacks and are increasingly using antivirus programs to protect themselves. The number of malware specimens for Mac will continue to grow in 2012, although still at a slower rate than for PCs.
  • PC Malware:- PC malware has grown exponentially over the past few years, and everything indicates that the trend will continue in 2012. Trojans, designed to sit silently on users’ computers, stealing information and transmitting it back to their handlers will continue to be cyber-crooks’ weapon of choice; 75 percent of new malware strains in 2011 were Trojans.
  • SMBs Under Attack:- Financial institutions are fairly well protected these days against malware. But smaller businesses are easier and cheaper targets to attack, and their customer databases can be a real treasure trove for hackers, particularly if credit card and other financial data is stored “in the clear”. Unfortunately, many small to medium-sized companies do not have dedicated security teams, which makes them much more vulnerable.
  • Windows 8:- While not scheduled until November 2012, the anticipated next version of Microsoft’s operating system will offer cyber-crooks new opportunities to create malicious software. Windows 8 will allow users to develop malware applications for virtually any device (PCs, tablets and smartphones) running this platform, although this will likely not take place until 2013.

Corrons concludes, “The malware game continues. As new technologies advance, cyber-crooks develop new modes of attack, often by simply adapting old techniques to the new platforms – which is an area software vendors need to pay attention to. In the end, though, it’s users’ false sense of security that is the hacker’s best friend.”


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Germany Launches Cyber Defense Center

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/26/2011 07:21:00 pm


Germany is the latest country to build itself its very own cyber-defense center to build a strategy to defend against cyber-warfare, a hot issue this year. The National Cyber-Defense Center is located in Bonn at the Federal Office for Information Security building. For now, it had ten permanent employees with the German Federal Police, Federal Intelligence Service and Armed Forces to join the effort in the coming months. The Interior ministry said it recorded a record number of attempted cyber attacks last year, nearly double the number of attempts in 2009.

"At the heart of cyber-security is the protection of critical infrastructures," said Federal Interior Minister Friedrich. "Stuxnet and the most recent example of the hacker attack on the French nuclear company EDF (Electricité de France) have shown that IT systems represent critical infrastructure in the context of cyber-attacks." 

Germany's move follows other's around the world, including the UK's Cyber Security Operations Center (CSOC) and the United States' Cyber Command center. Estonia, which was the victim of a country-wide cyber-attack in 2007 in a dispute over the moving of a soviet-era war monument, is also planning to build its own cyber defenses.

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Satellite System of U.S. Was Attacked By Chinese Hackers

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 10/27/2011 11:15:00 pm



Computer hackers, possibly from the Chinese military, interfered with two U.S. government satellites four times in 2007 and 2008 through a ground station in Norway, according to a congressional commission. The intrusions on the satellites, used for earth climate and terrain observation, underscore the potential danger posed by hackers, according to excerpts from the final draft of the annual report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. The report is scheduled to be released next month.
“Such interference poses numerous potential threats, particularly if achieved against satellites with more sensitive functions,” according to the draft. “Access to a satellite‘s controls could allow an attacker to damage or destroy the satellite. An attacker could also deny or degrade as well as forge or otherwise manipulate the satellite’s transmission.”
A Landsat-7 earth observation satellite system experienced 12 or more minutes of interference in October 2007 and July 2008, according to the report. Hackers interfered with a Terra AM-1 earth observation satellite twice, for two minutes in June 2008 and nine minutes in October that year, the draft says, citing a closed-door U.S. Air Force briefing. The draft report doesn’t elaborate on the nature of the hackers’ interference with the satellites.
Chinese Military Writings:-
U.S. military and intelligence agencies use satellites to communicate, collect intelligence and conduct reconnaissance. The draft doesn’t accuse the Chinese government of conducting or sponsoring the four attacks. It says the breaches are consistent with Chinese military writings that advocate disabling an enemy’s space systems, and particularly “ground-based infrastructure, such as satellite control facilities.”
U.S. authorities for years have accused the Chinese government of orchestrating cyber attacks against adversaries and hacking into foreign computer networks to steal military and commercial secrets. Assigning definitive blame is difficult, the draft says, because the perpetrators obscure their involvement. The commission’s 2009 report said that “individuals participating in ongoing penetrations of U.S. networks have Chinese language skills and have well established ties with the Chinese underground hacker community,” although it acknowledges that “these relationships do not prove any government affiliation.”
Chinese Denials:-
China this year “conducted and supported a range of malicious cyber activities,” this year’s draft reports. It says that evidence emerging this year tied the Chinese military to a decade-old cyber attack on a U.S.-based website of the Falun Gong spiritual group. Chinese officials long have denied any role in computer attacks.
The commission has “been collecting unproved stories to serve its purpose of vilifying China’s international image over the years,” said Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, in a statement. China “never does anything that endangers other countries’ security interests.” The Chinese government is working with other countries to clamp down on cyber crime, Wang said. Defense Department reports of malicious cyber activity, including incidents in which the Chinese weren’t the main suspect, rose to a high of 71,661 in 2009 from 3,651 in 2001, according to the draft. This year, attacks are expected to reach 55,110, compared with 55,812 in 2010.
Relying on the Internet:-
In the October 2008 incident with the Terra AM-1, which is managed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, “the responsible party achieved all steps required to command the satellite,” although the hackers never exercised that control, according to the draft. The U.S. discovered the 2007 cyber attack on the Landsat-7, which is jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, only after tracking the 2008 breach. The Landsat-7 and Terra AM-1 satellites utilize the commercially operated Svalbard Satellite Station in Spitsbergen, Norway that “routinely relies on the Internet for data access and file transfers,” says the commission, quoting a NASA report. The hackers may have used that Internet connection to get into the ground station’s information systems, according to the draft. While the perpetrators of the satellite breaches aren’t known for sure, other evidence uncovered this year showed the Chinese government’s involvement in another cyber attack, according to the draft.


-News Source (Bloom Berg)




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