CYBER WARS

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THE INTERNET OF THINGS

THE INTERNET OF THINGS

ICT and Cybersecurity experts warned that companies need to pay greater attention to their computer networks' cybersecurity and add that Telecoms company TalkTalk got hacked because “it wasn’t paying enough attention to its cybersecurity,” and that the recent  Ashley Madison attack,  is just the “the tip of  iceberg”.  They add that the growing threat by hackers is very real and that the cyber attacks comparable to the 9/11 event can be expected but needs to be thwarted before they happen.  With the arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT) a lot more devices are connected to the Internet and this number is constantly growing,  and provides new ways for hackers to gain access to private and confidential data. Experts recommend that network security must be part of a company’s core infrastructure because the few professional cybersecurity companies globally just aren't  enough to stop the constant barrage of cyber threats. 

 Barack Obama and  Xi Jinping

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping met as recent as the 25 Sept 2015 in Washington and reached an “understanding” not to use cyber spies to commit economic espionage and not to hack private firms in each other’s country for economic gain. But in less tan 20 days  a U.S. cybersecurity company claims that it has evidence that hackers linked to the Chinese government tried to violate a recent agreement between Washington and Beijing. American business have complained for a number of years that Chinese hackers have sought to steal trade secrets from U.S. corporate computers. In retaliation U.S. spy organizations have hacked into Chinese companies claiming that American officials performed these hacks  for national security purposes and not to steal Chinese trade secrets. Washington’s determination to eradicate Chinese cyber theft and ban all forms of digital protectionism resulted in regional trade pact with Pacific Rim countries  requiring  them to criminalize hacking attacks on U.S. companies.

US officials currently working on the Iran policy determined that the recent surge of cyber attacks by the Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to email and social media accounts of Obama administration officials it possibly  linked to arrest of  Siamak Namazi an Iranian-American businessman. The Iranian military  Revolutionary Guards have regularly made hacking attacks on US government agencies in recent years but has increased  after the landmark international agreement to eased severe economic sanctions on Iran in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.  

The World  Wide Web is the direct consequence of  all the hacking taking place globally but even though these hacks cost global business move than  £200bn last year, the Internet is non-the-less an indispensable  global resource which no country can function without. It is in this sense that ministers of the Obama administration are demanding answer with respect to the protection of the vital undersea Internet cables.  The Russian government recently spooked US officials by dispatching a submarine equipped to cut undersea cables along the East Coast of the United States. 

However the threat is much closer to home. A  teenage hacker crew has been casing John Brennan director of the CIA and other  government officials. A hacker with the alias "Cracka",  hacked into an email account belonging to the FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano  getting into a Comcast email that’s under Giuliano’s wife’s name.  They even provided several screenshots to prove they hacked the account but declined to reveal how they did it.

CYBERCRIME

CYBERCRIME FRENZY

It is common knowledge that Cybercrime cost global business more than £200bn last year. Statistically one in six companies have been hacked in the past year alone, and the financial and legal sectors are especially targeted but no exclusively. Having said that, the Talk Talk Telecom Group got hacked last Thursday  and the customers' bank details were stolen for the third time in eight months. TalkTalk previously got hacked in August and again in February. Management speculated that the hackers made off with some the 4 million client accounts, but after further investigation realized it to be a lot less. In an attempt to appease worried customers, Dido Harding apologized for the hacking before TalkTalk released official figures based on their internal investigation.  Announcing that some 20,000 bank account numbers and 28,000 partially obscured credit card details were accessed. Their investigation further showed that some 1.2 million customer email addresses, names and phone numbers were accessed.  

TalkTalk just got hacked

To add insult to injury, these very customers' bank details are already up for sale for £1.62 each (Bitcoins) on Alpha Bay Website by a hacker with the alias 'Martian'.  It is believed that Eastern European criminal gangs are the main buyers of such stolen financial data. A  hacker claimed that he could make £150,000 by getting hold of the data and selling it on to many gangs.

Beware of Alpha Bay on the deep web

Tuesday marked the 98th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, and Pro-Palestinian hackers on took over over the Twitter feed of the Hebrew-language Haaretz news website and sending threatening text messages to journalists. Among the tweets posted by the unknown hackers: “The Holocaust of the Balfour Declaration will continue the knife intifada”; “The mothers of our martyrs will drink the blood of your soldiers and settlers,” and “The memory of the Balfour Declaration has changed the situation, wait for the massacre that will be arriving soon.” Apart from the tweets, a sms expressing similar sentiments and threats was sent out to cell phones around Israel. “A continuous Holocaust upon you until you give back the right to its owners,” 

Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investment Group have just coughed up $35 million to a Cybersecurity company to secure their computer network because in 2014 hackers gained access to confidential and personal information of 83 million of JP Morgan's customers. The credentials of the Cybersecurity company has been verified by Deloitte and their hype seems very promising but only time will tell. This is the type of mark that hackers find very, very interesting and a challenge to prove that any and all forms of cybersecurity is purely a deterrent and not hacker proof.

GETTING PAID TO HACK

GETTING PAID TO HACK

During most of 2014 numerous hacking stories made it to the head lines of several newspapers. Data worth millions of dollars were stolen, websites were defaced and confidential client data was released to the general public. These acts drove fear into the hearts of Governments and fortune 500 companies, to the point that Tech Companies like Google, Tesla, Facebook, Apple and several other incentivized hackers and hacker crews to attempt to breach their computer network security, in exchange for a handsome payout should they be successful. Movies like Hackers and Blackhat, and TV series like Mr Robot,, NCIS, Criminal Minds and Continuum only served to entice White Hat and Grey Hat hacker squads to go "Black hat" and chase the bounty. However the objective of these companies were to identify weaknesses in the network security and plug it after getting feedback from hackers as to how they got in. Well that happens when they hire the wrong ITC people and especially network administrators with mediocre hacking skills.

The Hacker in Mr Robot

In September, a  bounty of  $1 million was publicly offered to anyone who could successfully hack the latest versions of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 9.1 and 9.2b, on a new iPhone or iPad. The rules stated that the iPhone hack must “be achievable remotely, reliably, silently, and without requiring any user interaction, other than visiting a web page or reading a text message”.  Only Google Chrome and Apple’s own Safari browsers were allowed to be used for the hack.  On Monday 2 November,  security company Zerodium  announced that they have agreed to pay out that seven-figure sum to the hacker crew who successfully developed a technique that can hack any iPhone or iPad and can trick them into visiting a carefully crafted web site. Two hackers teams have been actively working on the challenge both keeping their eyes on the prize. But only hacker crew  managed to develop  a complete remote jailbreak however the second team  may qualify for a partial bounty. Zerodium will brief Apple on the exploit so that the holes in the iOS  can be plugged. The procedures of this hack is especially valuable, given that government agencies including the NSA and CIA have had difficulty hacking into iPhones.

Europe’s Chaos Computer Club is very disappointed that Apple rejected the group’s streaming video app. The Apple app would've allowed interested parties to watch  the  Chaos Communications Congress event talks in real time. But it turns out the Apple is still pissed because members of the conference had previously hacked iOS. Apple claims they don’t want to help spread the hacking word even though  fellow hacker Steve Wasniak and co-founder of Apple was part of the “white hat” hacker community.  Shame on you Apple for depriving the hacker community and denying the principals upon which Apple was built. However the conference live streams are available on both the Chaos Computer Club’s official website and on YouTube and still accessible to Apple users.

Electric caremaker Tesla Motors invited hackers to try to breach their vehicle's systems and offered hackers attending the SyScan conference in Beijing $10,000 earlier this month if they could hack and control its electric Model S sedan. A "white hats" hacking crew from Zhejiang University was awarded $1,700  for their efforts because they didn't achieve the goal within the specified time frame even though they gained access. After the hackers explain how they did, Tesla patched many of the vulnerabilities to make the Tesla a safer car.

The all electric Tesla car

Wauconda's website was hacked on Friday 30 October or sometime during the past weekend  The hackers  or hacker replaced much of the onsite municipal information  by anti-American and anti-Israeli photographs and pro-Islam messages. Turns out Doug Maxeiner the village Administrator was quite offended by the image of the burning U.S. flag but its more likely that he is his pissed because he got hacked and couldn't do anything about it. Blaming the hack on their web hosting company in Charleston inability to block them because he believes the hacker or hackers achieved accessed the website through the ISP's system. Wauconda police are aware of the hacking who was also asked to notify the FBI of the incident. The Mayor said this also happened to the Wauconda police website and ads that it was also done a radical Islamist group. That's sander and without proof it could be anyone, perhaps even the Pope. 

Anonymous Hacker crew Philippines wearing Guy Fawkes Masks

Anonymous Philippines, is an anti-government hacking crew with a mission to “fight for freedom, truth, and justice” and their  latest victim is non other than the Ku Klux Klan. A hacking campaign dubbed "Operation KKK" with the sole intent to  harass members of the racist group online, embarrass and intimidate then and shame them  publicly.  "Anonymous"  have released two lists of alleged KKK members retrieved from a KKK database. The "Anonymous" crew  have previously targeted  the electronics giant Sony, the Church of Scientology, the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church. Earlier this year, the "Anonymous" crew hacked and defaced 20 government websites seeking justice for the 44 fallen policemen at the Mamasapano incident. Last September, they did the same thing to the National Telecommunications Commissions (NTC) website. They are known to wear Guy Fawkes masks in public and instigated the "Million Mask March" planed for November 5, 2015--Guy Fawkes Day.  Anonymous claimed responsibility for breaking into the social media twitter account of Maine on Tuesday morning to get access to her 2.4 million followers and inform them all of the "Million Mask March".

KKK lighting up a cross with gasoline.

HACKING THE NET

HACKING THE NET

Curiosity and inquisitiveness are two characteristics deeply ingrained in nature and is a very natural part of all life forms. Curiosity killed the cat but inquisitiveness has sent many a hacker to jail for 'cybercrime' though over zealous inquisitiveness is normally their only crime. Anyone with sufficient interest in the 'art of hacking' can become quite accomplish in just a few short months  but mastering it takes substantially longer.  The learning curve of hacking is fairly steep, the subject is extremely interesting and the knowledge totally beyond awesome. Hence you hear names like, “Digigod”, “Cybergod” “Solo”, “C0mrade”, “Dark Dante” and   “Byteking”, etc, etc, because analytical thought,  mental brilliance or a high IQ and  does tend give some people a complex of superiority. Which in some cases borders on arrogance then stupidity. 

When one gets the hang of computers, ports, software and programming, understand communications protocols, have a familiarity with networks and routing tables and can visualize how they seamlessly integrate, curiosity can get the better of you. Knowing when to stop  is the difference between a hacker and a cracker. Crackers are those individuals or teams intent on stealing sensitive or classified information, credit card details and other forms of identity theft for financial gain. Whereas hackers are those individuals who respect personal and corporate boundaries and do what they do for personal pleasure and advancement of knowledge. Most hackers today are employed as network security consultants or security analysts and the best example of such a hacker is Kevin Mitnick. He served time for his inquisitiveness and now works  as a network security professional. People with hacking skills are in big demand and normally command above decent salaries.  There is an old saying that says, "it takes a thief to catch a thief" well likewise "it takes a hacker (“White Hat”) to catch a cracker" ( “Black Hats” ).  One of the hackers were even referred to as  the “Hannibal Lecter of computer crime.”

Kevin Mitnick hacker supreme

Hacking is a serious offence and as recent as 28th August,  'smilex' the administrator of the botnet “Bugat” aka Dridex got nabbed in Cypress by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In a joint venture of U.K and US disrupted his botnet which infected more than 125 000 computers in one year. Smilex is innocent until proven guilty but has already been labeled as a cyber criminal. He is being held for releasing a sophisticated malware package designed to steal banking and other credentials from infected computers that amounts to millions of USD. Smilex's real name is Andrey Ghinkul  or Andrei Ghincul and he is from Moldova.  It is alleged that he and  his co-conspirators used the Dridex P2P malware to initiate fraudulent electronic funds transfers  from the victims’ bank accounts into the accounts of their money mules, who then transferred the stolen funds to other members of the conspiracy. 

Black hat hacker

The first offence was a transfer of $999,000 from the Sharon, Pennsylvania, City School District’s account at First National Bank to an account in Kiev, Ukraine.  The second offence was a transfer of  $2,158,600 from a Penneco Oil account held at First Commonwealth Bank to an account in Krasnodar, Russia.  The third offence was a transfer of   $1,350,000 from a Penneco Oil account held at First Commonwealth Bank to an account in Minsk, Belarus.  The fourth was a attempt to transfer $76,520 from a Penneco Oil account held at First Commonwealth Bank to an account in Philadelphia. But the FBI estimates that peer-to-peer malware and the Bugat botnet is responsible for at  least $10 million domestically. The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), have released a Technical Alert (TA15-286A)  for all Microsoft Windows Affected Systems  about the Dridex botnet. 

Because Smilex targeted American businesses, the USA is seeking for his extradition so that he can be tried in America. He will be charged with criminal conspiracy, unauthorized computer access with intent to defraud, damaging a computer, wire fraud and bank fraud.   But don't let this put you off from learning hacking, because the key to becoming a successful hacker  is to know where to draw the line.

If you've been infected, the following anti-virus software could help to alleviate your problems.

F-Secure
https://www.f-secure.com/en/web/home_global/online-scanner/

McAfee
http://www.mcafee.com/uk/downloads/free-tools/stinger.aspx/

Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/security/scanner/en-us/default.aspx/ 
       
Sophos
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/virus-removal-tool.aspx/

Trend Micro
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/