ThePythonicCow
1st September 2016, 03:06
There seems to be an increase in the frequency, severity and propaganda associated with Internet security breaches of financial and credit information, of national security information, of mass spying, of mass leakage of password, email and account information, and so forth.
Here are some that have been in the news so far this year, 2016:
Ongoing - the leaking of US National Security information by Edward Snowden (he's currently somewhere in Russia)
Ongoing - the leaking of various secret material by Julian Assange of Wikileaks (he's currently in the Ecuadorian embassy in London)
Ongoing - the leaking of Hillary Clinton's and the US Democrat party's email and such
Ongoing and sharply increasing - on many websites - Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks
Ongoing - Crypto Ransomware encrypts data and demands ransom to get it back. Attacks on hospital computers are common.
Ongoing - increasingly widespread security flaws found in various Internet of Things (IOT) "smart" home devices (light bulbs, baby monitors, thermostats, etc)
---
5 Jan 2016 - 1.4 million Ukrainians lost electrical power (http://www.databreachtoday.com/ukrainian-power-grid-hacked-a-8779) when their grid was hacked
11 Jan 2016 - New crypto flaw found in Juniper Firmware (http://www.databreachtoday.com/juniper-firmware-new-crypto-flaw-found-a-8790) equipment (a major Internet equipment provider)
26 Jan 2016 - Health insurer Centene Corp (http://www.databreachtoday.com/hard-drives-lost-affecting-nearly-1-million-a-8829) loses records of nearly a million customers
29 Jan 2016 - DDOS slams British bank HSBC (http://www.databreachtoday.com/ddos-attack-slams-hsbc-a-8835)
February 2016 - Well publicized battle between Apple and FBI (http://www.databreachtoday.com/apple-blasts-judges-iphone-backdoor-order-a-8875) over decrypting an alleged terrorist's iPhone
27 Feb 2016 - IRS (http://www.databreachtoday.com/irs-doubles-number-get-transcript-victims-a-8900) (US Fed Income Tax Collectors) doubles estimate of number of victims of the "Get Transcript" hack to as many as 724,000 taxpayers.
10 Mar 2016 - SWIFT network26 Apr 2016 heist of $100 Million from Bangladesh Bank (http://www.databreachtoday.com/bangladesh-bank-hackers-steal-100-million-a-8958)
25 Mar 2016 - Verizon (http://www.databreachtoday.com/verizon-confirms-breach-affecting-business-customers-a-8991) loses some information on 1.5 million customers
April 2016 - Massive Panama Papers (http://www.databreachtoday.com/panama-papers-6-security-takeaways-a-9018) leak of financial shenanigans of some very powerful people.
18 Apr 2016 - GozNym trojan (http://www.databreachtoday.com/new-hybrid-banking-trojan-goznym-steals-millions-a-9049) steals millions from business bank customer accounts
26 Apr 2016 - Qatar National Bank (QNB) (http://www.databreachtoday.com/news/p-16) has 1.4 GBytes of customer record data stolen
11 May 2016 - The above hackers of QNB have also hacked banks in United Arab Empirates, Nepal, and Bangladesh (http://www.databreachtoday.com/hackers-leak-data-5-south-asian-banks-a-9090) and a bank in Ceylon (http://www.databreachtoday.com/commercial-bank-ceylon-hacked-a-9103).
16 May 2016 - Above SWIFT hackers of Bangladesh also tried, but failed, to attack Vietnam's TPBank (http://www.databreachtoday.com/vietnamese-bank-blocks-1-million-swift-heist-a-9105)
20 May 2016 - announced that back in Jan 2016, the above SWIFT hackers also got $12.2 million from Banco del Austro, or BDA, in Ecuador (http://www.databreachtoday.com/another-swift-hack-stole-12-million-a-9121).
1 Jun 2016 - MySpace (http://www.databreachtoday.com/myspace-fallout-more-big-breaches-to-come-a-9158) confirms earlier hack of the encrypted passwords and the account information of some 360 million members
6 Jun 2016 - Data on some 400,000 past and present prisoners in California (http://www.databreachtoday.com/laptop-breach-may-affect-400000-prisoners-a-9173) stolen
14 Jun 2016 - Hackers attack Democrat National Committee's (DNC's) (http://www.databreachtoday.com/report-russias-best-hackers-access-dncs-trump-research-a-9197) research on Trump (the Democrats blame Russia)
8 July 2016 - A thousand Wendy's restaurants (http://www.databreachtoday.com/wendys-hackers-took-bite-out-1000-restaurants-a-9247) suffered payment card compromises
8 July 2016 - Android Trojanized Adware (http://www.databreachtoday.com/android-trojanized-adware-shedun-infections-surge-a-9249) 'Shedun' Infections Surge
10 July 2016 - Hacker leaks 80,000 Amazon Kindle (https://www.hackread.com/amazon-suffers-security-breach/) login credentials.
12 July 2016 - Pokemon Go (http://www.databreachtoday.com/pokemon-go-mayhem-privacy-muggings-malware-a-9256) (a smartphone game) can steal wide variety of personal data on smartphones
29 July 2016 - Computers of Hillary Clinton's Campaign (http://www.databreachtoday.com/clinton-campaign-reports-breach-a-9298) were hacked
3 Aug 2016 - Arizona-based Banner Health (http://www.databreachtoday.com/banner-health-breach-affects-37-million-a-9304), which operates 29 hospitals, says it's notifying 3.7 million individuals that their data was exposed in a "sophisticated cyberattack."
8 Aug 2016 - Flaws in Qualcomm chipset software put an estimated 900 million Android smartphones and tablets (http://www.databreachtoday.com/four-android-flaws-leave-900m-devices-at-risk-a-9329) at risk
17 Aug 2016 - The hackers are hacked. Hackers "Shadow Bankers" (http://www.databreachtoday.com/confirmed-leaked-equation-group-hacking-tools-are-real-a-9344) (rumored to work with Russia) revealed some of the highly sophisticated hacking tools they stole from the "Equation Group" (rumored to work with the NSA)
18 Aug 2016 - The Equation Group leak revealed a zero-day flaw in Cisco's firewall software (http://www.databreachtoday.com/equation-group-stings-firewall-vendors-zero-day-flaws-a-9346). Cisco is the world's largest provider of Internet routers and firewalls.
19 Aug 2016 - Retailer Eddie Bauer (http://www.databreachtoday.com/eddie-bauer-hacked-by-pos-malware-a-9348) reveals its Point-Of-Sale equipment was hacked for six months, leaking customer credit card data.
22 Aug 2016 - The above Shadow Bankers release of Equation Group's tools reveals that the NSA could hack a popular Cisco device for over a decade (http://www.databreachtoday.com/nsa-pwned-cisco-vpns-for-11-years-a-9354).
23 Aug 2016 - Hack of Epic Games (http://www.databreachtoday.com/epic-games-forums-breached-again-a-9355) gets account information of 800,000 members.
26 Aug 2016 - Apple releases fixes for highly sophisticated attack against all recent models of its iPhone (http://www.databreachtoday.com/apple-fixes-zero-day-flaws-used-to-target-activist-a-9363) that could totally and secretly spy on everything the phone sees, hears or knows. The software appeared to have some origins in Israel's intelligence.
29 Aug 2016 - Some 1.7 million Opera browser (https://threatpost.com/1-7-million-opera-browser-users-told-to-reset-passwords/120200/) users need to reset passwords after Opera Sync compromise.
30 Aug 2016 - Hackers breach election systems in Illinois and Arizona (http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/politics/hackers-breach-illinois-arizona-election-systems/).
30 Aug 2016 - More than 68 million Dropbox (http://thehackernews.com/2016/08/dropbox-data-breach.html) accounts compromised.
31 Aug 2016 - OneLogin's "Secure Notes" hacked (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?92993-OneLogin-s-Secure-Notes-hacked)
31 Aug 2016 - More attacks on SWIFT (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/31/swift-discloses-more-cyber-thefts-pressures-banks-on-security.html) revealed.
There are a lot of items above ... I don't expect you to read them all (or even most of them.)
I would notice a couple of things:
The rate of such events seems to be increasing in the last few months. August 2016 is especially busy.
Major targets are (a) the SWIFT inter-bank money transfer network, (b) presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, (c) US hospitals, and (d) exposing the covert surveillance ability of the NSA and Israel.
Most of the links above go to the Data Breach Today (http://www.databreachtoday.com/) website. They were a convenient site to extract this chronology from.
However I usually get my Internet and Cyber Security news from Steve Gibson's Security Now (https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm) weekly podcast with Leo Laporte, as well as other headline consolidator sites for various computer, financial and news events of the day.
The Apple release of 26 Aug above, and the various leaks of the Equation Group tools by the Shadow Bankers above are the biggest security items, in terms of severely compromising the private information of key people by (apparently) the NSA and Mossad. The leaks from Hillary Clinton's computers and related DNC leaks have obtained far more publicity, but required far less deep secret computer expertise to accomplish.
It seems to me that cyber-warfare is being used against the Anglo-American neocons, and military-industrial-intelligence-financial complex.
The battle is heating up.
Here are some that have been in the news so far this year, 2016:
Ongoing - the leaking of US National Security information by Edward Snowden (he's currently somewhere in Russia)
Ongoing - the leaking of various secret material by Julian Assange of Wikileaks (he's currently in the Ecuadorian embassy in London)
Ongoing - the leaking of Hillary Clinton's and the US Democrat party's email and such
Ongoing and sharply increasing - on many websites - Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks
Ongoing - Crypto Ransomware encrypts data and demands ransom to get it back. Attacks on hospital computers are common.
Ongoing - increasingly widespread security flaws found in various Internet of Things (IOT) "smart" home devices (light bulbs, baby monitors, thermostats, etc)
---
5 Jan 2016 - 1.4 million Ukrainians lost electrical power (http://www.databreachtoday.com/ukrainian-power-grid-hacked-a-8779) when their grid was hacked
11 Jan 2016 - New crypto flaw found in Juniper Firmware (http://www.databreachtoday.com/juniper-firmware-new-crypto-flaw-found-a-8790) equipment (a major Internet equipment provider)
26 Jan 2016 - Health insurer Centene Corp (http://www.databreachtoday.com/hard-drives-lost-affecting-nearly-1-million-a-8829) loses records of nearly a million customers
29 Jan 2016 - DDOS slams British bank HSBC (http://www.databreachtoday.com/ddos-attack-slams-hsbc-a-8835)
February 2016 - Well publicized battle between Apple and FBI (http://www.databreachtoday.com/apple-blasts-judges-iphone-backdoor-order-a-8875) over decrypting an alleged terrorist's iPhone
27 Feb 2016 - IRS (http://www.databreachtoday.com/irs-doubles-number-get-transcript-victims-a-8900) (US Fed Income Tax Collectors) doubles estimate of number of victims of the "Get Transcript" hack to as many as 724,000 taxpayers.
10 Mar 2016 - SWIFT network26 Apr 2016 heist of $100 Million from Bangladesh Bank (http://www.databreachtoday.com/bangladesh-bank-hackers-steal-100-million-a-8958)
25 Mar 2016 - Verizon (http://www.databreachtoday.com/verizon-confirms-breach-affecting-business-customers-a-8991) loses some information on 1.5 million customers
April 2016 - Massive Panama Papers (http://www.databreachtoday.com/panama-papers-6-security-takeaways-a-9018) leak of financial shenanigans of some very powerful people.
18 Apr 2016 - GozNym trojan (http://www.databreachtoday.com/new-hybrid-banking-trojan-goznym-steals-millions-a-9049) steals millions from business bank customer accounts
26 Apr 2016 - Qatar National Bank (QNB) (http://www.databreachtoday.com/news/p-16) has 1.4 GBytes of customer record data stolen
11 May 2016 - The above hackers of QNB have also hacked banks in United Arab Empirates, Nepal, and Bangladesh (http://www.databreachtoday.com/hackers-leak-data-5-south-asian-banks-a-9090) and a bank in Ceylon (http://www.databreachtoday.com/commercial-bank-ceylon-hacked-a-9103).
16 May 2016 - Above SWIFT hackers of Bangladesh also tried, but failed, to attack Vietnam's TPBank (http://www.databreachtoday.com/vietnamese-bank-blocks-1-million-swift-heist-a-9105)
20 May 2016 - announced that back in Jan 2016, the above SWIFT hackers also got $12.2 million from Banco del Austro, or BDA, in Ecuador (http://www.databreachtoday.com/another-swift-hack-stole-12-million-a-9121).
1 Jun 2016 - MySpace (http://www.databreachtoday.com/myspace-fallout-more-big-breaches-to-come-a-9158) confirms earlier hack of the encrypted passwords and the account information of some 360 million members
6 Jun 2016 - Data on some 400,000 past and present prisoners in California (http://www.databreachtoday.com/laptop-breach-may-affect-400000-prisoners-a-9173) stolen
14 Jun 2016 - Hackers attack Democrat National Committee's (DNC's) (http://www.databreachtoday.com/report-russias-best-hackers-access-dncs-trump-research-a-9197) research on Trump (the Democrats blame Russia)
8 July 2016 - A thousand Wendy's restaurants (http://www.databreachtoday.com/wendys-hackers-took-bite-out-1000-restaurants-a-9247) suffered payment card compromises
8 July 2016 - Android Trojanized Adware (http://www.databreachtoday.com/android-trojanized-adware-shedun-infections-surge-a-9249) 'Shedun' Infections Surge
10 July 2016 - Hacker leaks 80,000 Amazon Kindle (https://www.hackread.com/amazon-suffers-security-breach/) login credentials.
12 July 2016 - Pokemon Go (http://www.databreachtoday.com/pokemon-go-mayhem-privacy-muggings-malware-a-9256) (a smartphone game) can steal wide variety of personal data on smartphones
29 July 2016 - Computers of Hillary Clinton's Campaign (http://www.databreachtoday.com/clinton-campaign-reports-breach-a-9298) were hacked
3 Aug 2016 - Arizona-based Banner Health (http://www.databreachtoday.com/banner-health-breach-affects-37-million-a-9304), which operates 29 hospitals, says it's notifying 3.7 million individuals that their data was exposed in a "sophisticated cyberattack."
8 Aug 2016 - Flaws in Qualcomm chipset software put an estimated 900 million Android smartphones and tablets (http://www.databreachtoday.com/four-android-flaws-leave-900m-devices-at-risk-a-9329) at risk
17 Aug 2016 - The hackers are hacked. Hackers "Shadow Bankers" (http://www.databreachtoday.com/confirmed-leaked-equation-group-hacking-tools-are-real-a-9344) (rumored to work with Russia) revealed some of the highly sophisticated hacking tools they stole from the "Equation Group" (rumored to work with the NSA)
18 Aug 2016 - The Equation Group leak revealed a zero-day flaw in Cisco's firewall software (http://www.databreachtoday.com/equation-group-stings-firewall-vendors-zero-day-flaws-a-9346). Cisco is the world's largest provider of Internet routers and firewalls.
19 Aug 2016 - Retailer Eddie Bauer (http://www.databreachtoday.com/eddie-bauer-hacked-by-pos-malware-a-9348) reveals its Point-Of-Sale equipment was hacked for six months, leaking customer credit card data.
22 Aug 2016 - The above Shadow Bankers release of Equation Group's tools reveals that the NSA could hack a popular Cisco device for over a decade (http://www.databreachtoday.com/nsa-pwned-cisco-vpns-for-11-years-a-9354).
23 Aug 2016 - Hack of Epic Games (http://www.databreachtoday.com/epic-games-forums-breached-again-a-9355) gets account information of 800,000 members.
26 Aug 2016 - Apple releases fixes for highly sophisticated attack against all recent models of its iPhone (http://www.databreachtoday.com/apple-fixes-zero-day-flaws-used-to-target-activist-a-9363) that could totally and secretly spy on everything the phone sees, hears or knows. The software appeared to have some origins in Israel's intelligence.
29 Aug 2016 - Some 1.7 million Opera browser (https://threatpost.com/1-7-million-opera-browser-users-told-to-reset-passwords/120200/) users need to reset passwords after Opera Sync compromise.
30 Aug 2016 - Hackers breach election systems in Illinois and Arizona (http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/politics/hackers-breach-illinois-arizona-election-systems/).
30 Aug 2016 - More than 68 million Dropbox (http://thehackernews.com/2016/08/dropbox-data-breach.html) accounts compromised.
31 Aug 2016 - OneLogin's "Secure Notes" hacked (http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?92993-OneLogin-s-Secure-Notes-hacked)
31 Aug 2016 - More attacks on SWIFT (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/31/swift-discloses-more-cyber-thefts-pressures-banks-on-security.html) revealed.
There are a lot of items above ... I don't expect you to read them all (or even most of them.)
I would notice a couple of things:
The rate of such events seems to be increasing in the last few months. August 2016 is especially busy.
Major targets are (a) the SWIFT inter-bank money transfer network, (b) presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, (c) US hospitals, and (d) exposing the covert surveillance ability of the NSA and Israel.
Most of the links above go to the Data Breach Today (http://www.databreachtoday.com/) website. They were a convenient site to extract this chronology from.
However I usually get my Internet and Cyber Security news from Steve Gibson's Security Now (https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm) weekly podcast with Leo Laporte, as well as other headline consolidator sites for various computer, financial and news events of the day.
The Apple release of 26 Aug above, and the various leaks of the Equation Group tools by the Shadow Bankers above are the biggest security items, in terms of severely compromising the private information of key people by (apparently) the NSA and Mossad. The leaks from Hillary Clinton's computers and related DNC leaks have obtained far more publicity, but required far less deep secret computer expertise to accomplish.
It seems to me that cyber-warfare is being used against the Anglo-American neocons, and military-industrial-intelligence-financial complex.
The battle is heating up.