Today the world is supposed to end but we don’t care. We have listed
10 cyber attacks that have happened in the year 2012. These attacks were
widely reported in the news and have taught us a couple of lessons we
won’t forget soon.
This attack happened in the month of January but the company decided not to disclose the information immediately after consulting with the Dutch government and law enforcement agencies.
The estimated cost of the breach was estimated around $107 000.
In the same month UGNAZI and TheWikiboat were highly active with their SQL injections and defacements.
The virus has been noted as unique for having differing behaviour from other malware cyber espionage attacks. Shamoon is capable of spreading to other computers on the network, through exploitation of shared hard drives. Once a system is infected, the virus continues to compile a list of files from specific locations on the system, erase and then send information about these files back to the attacker. Finally, the virus will overwrite the master boot record of the system to prevent it from booting.
The hack was carried out in early September by the spear phishing method, in which disguised e-mails ask recipients to disclose confidential information. Security officials are still investigating the incident to determine the specific level of damage that resulted from it, and some officials remain concerned that the attackers were successful in breaching the classified information. If they are right, and Beijing’s attack was successful, China could use the information in future conflicts to locate the president for targeting purposes, to disrupt the president’s strategic command of U.S. forces both in the country and abroad, and to intercept presidential communications.
1 Zeus phishing campaign targets military
In the month of January some military installations were attacked by an aggressive Zeus phishing campaign. The attacks faked the USAA a financial services company that serves military members, their families and veterans.2 KPN breach
One of the largest ISP’s in The Netherlands was forced to shut down its email services after hackers posted usernames, passwords, phone numbers, addresses from 500 costumer.This attack happened in the month of January but the company decided not to disclose the information immediately after consulting with the Dutch government and law enforcement agencies.
The estimated cost of the breach was estimated around $107 000.
3 BBC attacked
In March the BBC director-general Mark Thompson declared that the BBC company has suffered a sophisticated cyber-attack following a campaign by Iranian authorities against its Persian service.4 Tamper Data add-on
In the month of May Sophos announced a serious vulnerability in the Hotmail service which allowed hackers to access 13 million hotmail accounts. In the same period the services Yahoo and AOL were affected by the Tamper Data hack.5 Zero day exploit Gmail
In the month of June Microsoft and Google warned for a zero day exploit that allows attackers to break into Gmail accounts.In the same month UGNAZI and TheWikiboat were highly active with their SQL injections and defacements.
6 Madi, Duqu, Flame and Thunderstruck
In the month of July the world faced a couple of new malware that were targeting critical infrastructures. It was the same month that the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran was attacked. The attackers played the AC/DC Thunderstruck song.7 Shamoon
In Augustus the Shamoon malware hit the Saudi Oil Company Saudi Aramco. 30 000 workstations were affected.The virus has been noted as unique for having differing behaviour from other malware cyber espionage attacks. Shamoon is capable of spreading to other computers on the network, through exploitation of shared hard drives. Once a system is infected, the virus continues to compile a list of files from specific locations on the system, erase and then send information about these files back to the attacker. Finally, the virus will overwrite the master boot record of the system to prevent it from booting.
8 Chinese Hackers Breach White House Military Network
Hackers connected to China’s government infiltrated a U.S. government computer network containing some of Washington’s most sensitive information, the Washington Free Beacon reported on September 30.The hack was carried out in early September by the spear phishing method, in which disguised e-mails ask recipients to disclose confidential information. Security officials are still investigating the incident to determine the specific level of damage that resulted from it, and some officials remain concerned that the attackers were successful in breaching the classified information. If they are right, and Beijing’s attack was successful, China could use the information in future conflicts to locate the president for targeting purposes, to disrupt the president’s strategic command of U.S. forces both in the country and abroad, and to intercept presidential communications.