Security | EconoTwist's

The International Monetary Fund, IMF, is the latest high-profile organization to become a victim of network intrusion by hackers. According to several media reports, the IMF has suffered a substantial security breach, of which the full extent is not yet known. Over the last few months, cyber attacks have increased in both frequency and severity. The group of cyber activists, Anonymous, are currently involved in 9000 attacks on governments and corporations around the world. Check out the stunning details.

“You still have the power to stand up for good. Do NOT come between us and our freedom. You have been warned.”

The Anonymous

According to The New York Times, quoting an unnamed official, the IMF intrusion is a “very major” one, and has been going on for several months. The actual dimensions of the attack are still unknown. The IMF says that the Fund is “fully functional” and that the organization is investigating the incident. Sony, Citibank, Acer, Epsilon, RSA, NASA, Lockheed Martin – even Al-Qaeda and the FBI – everyone seems to get hacked these days!

The IMF declined to say who might be behind the intrusion, NYT reports.

A Bloomberg story, however, cited an unidentified security expert as saying that the attackers were believed to be connected to an unspecified foreign government and that e-mails and other documents had been taken.

Dealing with the global financial crises, international trade and other monetary matters, the IMF is privy to sensitive economic information regarding a number of countries data that could be extremely valuable to investors and of great interest to governments.

The organization has also been criticized for its policies and accused of being responsible for crises.

The breach is the latest in a series of headline grabbing hacks that have involved the likes of computer security company RSA, several U.S. military contractors, search giant and Web-based e-mail purveyor Google, and Sony entertainment behemoth.

Shutting Down The World Bank

Cyberespionage and cyber warfare have been making headline news consistently for quite some time.

Bloomberg quotes a memo to IMF employees by the organization’s chief information officer, warning the staff to be vigilant:

“Last week we detected some suspicious file transfers, and the subsequent investigation established that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems. At this point, we have no reason to believe that any personal information was sought for fraud purposes.”

The memo also says that the IMF’s network connection to the World Bank (which is headquartered across the street from the Fund) have been shut down “as a precautionary measure.”

An earlier memo to employees has warned the IMF staff of phishing attacks, saying:

“Staff is strongly requested NOT TO OPEN emails and video links without authenticating the source.”

Bloomberg writes that the recent network breach is not associated with the group Anonymous, which had earlier threatened an attack on the Fund in association with IMF activities involving the economically hobbled country of Greece.

On Saturday, law enforcement officials in Spain said they had arrested several members of Anonymous in connection with attacks on entertainment giant Sony, as well as on governments and financial institutions.

Hackers Go Wild

A wave of cyber attacks has left corporations and government organizations in a state of shock and confusion.

The Hacker News reports that they have received a message from the hacking group, Pakistan Cyber Army – PCA – claiming the group has hacked Acer Europe’s server and stolen sensitive information.

THN have posted a screenshot of the data reportedly collected, which included the personal information of 40,000 customers, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and the names of products they had purchased.

According to The Hacker News, the PCA plans to release more data within the next 24 hours, and will follow that up with a press release discussing its reasons for hacking Acer’s Europe division.

Acer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, CNET.com reports.

The Anonymous, which made headlines last year by hacking financial institutions and other sites in defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, recently made public more than 10,000 e-mails it stole from Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

According to the International Business Times, quote a source who have viewed the documents, most of the files are passports and visas, relate to an “oil meeting.”

NATO Gets a Warning

The organization has also launched a new operation it’s calling Op NATO Black Fax/E-mail Bomb.

Users can surf to the OpNATO page and send a free prewritten fax to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in defense of Anonymous. The organization has posted a list of fax numbers to the page, and has asked supporters to send “as many [faxes] as you can” to those numbers.

“It has come to our attention that you have classified Anonymous a ‘potential threat to the security of [your] member states,’ and that you seek retaliation against us,” reads the letter to NATO, which is made up of the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., among other countries. Anonymous goes on to ask the member nations to “retaliate against us in any manner you choose.” However, even if some of its members are jailed, the letter reads, the nations will find “that Anonymous continues to live on.”

Anonymous’ letter ends with the following threat:

“Think carefully before you continue from here,” the letter reads. “You still have the power to stand up for good. Do NOT come between us and our freedom. You have been warned.”

But there seems to be many busy hacking groups at the moment:

Earlier Sunday, a hacker known as “pr0f” posted the e-mails and passwords of more than a hundred United Arab Emirates government employees.

However, the hacker said the list was “historic” and that the e-mail passwords were not current.

Even British intelligence officials have gotten into the mix.

Hacking With Humor

According to a Daily Telegraph report yesterday, the British intelligence organization, MI6, hacked into an al-Qaeda online magazine recently and replaced a recipe on bomb-making with a recipes on making “The Best Cupcakes in America.”

The latest string of hacks started in earnest in April when hackers launched a sophisticated attack against Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. The hackers also breached Sony Online Entertainment.

After discovering the breach, Sony was forced to take the services down.

The company reported that the personal information of more than 100 million users had been exposed.

Sony reassured users at the time that credit card data was encrypted. It has also said no identity theft has been reported because of the breach.

So far, Sony hasn’t been able to pinpoint who overcame its defenses, but the company did find a file named “Anonymous” on its servers. The file contained part of the hacking organization’s slogan: “We are legion.”

The Anonymous says it is not responsible for the Sony attack. It did acknowledge, however, that some of its members might have acted independently to hack Sony.

Though Sony might have hoped it was out of the woods following the PlayStation Network breach, the company still faces attacks from hackers.

Yesterday, a hacking organization called LulzSec posted links on its Twitter account to data it had stolen from Sony’s internal networks, as well as from the networks of Sony Pictures, Sony Music Belgium, and Sony Music Netherlands.

“We recently broke into SonyPictures.com and compromised over 1 million users’ personal information, including passwords, e-mail addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and all Sony opt-in data associated with their accounts,” LulzSec wrote on Pastebin, the site where it posted some data. “Among other things, we also compromised all admin details of Sony Pictures (including passwords) along with 75,000 ‘music codes’ and 3.5 million ‘music coupons.’ “

The group claimed the data was not encrypted and had been left for the taking. Sony confirmed the attack this evening, saying it had contacted the FBI in an effort to track down the individuals who posted the data.

LulzSec’s attack on Sony was the second major hack the organization engaged in over the past week. This past weekend, the group showed off its hacking ability by engaging in what it called a “fun battle” with the Public Broadcasting Service.

LulzSec also posted a fake news story on the PBS site, saying that musical artist Tupac was still alive, and reportedly published log-in data for the PBS workforce.

The hack was a response to an airing of a PBS “Frontline” episode called “WikiSecrets” that presented WikiLeaks in a somewhat unfavorable light.

The LulzSec hack followed a statement earlier this week from Google claiming it had “detected and disrupted” a phishing attack that attempted to give the hackers access to hundreds of Gmail accounts belonging to senior U.S. government officials.

Google said it believed the attacks originated from Jinan, China, but stopped short of blaming the Chinese government.

The US government has denied that state-run e-mail accounts were hacked, but it has launched an investigation into the possibility of officials’ Gmail accounts being targeted.

“Speaking on behalf of the US government, we’re looking into these reports and seeking to gather the facts,” Caitlin Hayden, deputy spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement to CNET yesterday.

“We have no reason to believe that any official US government e-mail accounts were accessed.”

Now, that’s waving a red flag in front of a raging bull.

Complete Coverage

Thanks to The Hackers News – who has been reporting on most incidents lately – here’s the list of registered highlights between April and June 2011 :

Sony Online Entertainment announce that it has lost 12 700 customer credit cards as a result of an attack, and about 24,6 million accounts may have been breached. LINK
The Anonymous performs Operation Iran, attacking the governmental websites responsible for oppressing the freedom of speech, information or ideas. LINK
The information and review site on high-speed internet, DSLReport.com, gets hit with a blind SQL injection attack, resulting in a compromise of at least 9000 accounts. LINK
Hackers gain access to famous pop star Lady Gaga’s Twitter account and began posting spam messages. LINK
The social network site Buddie.me gets hacked, about 15 809 emails/passwords published on the net. LINK
Pakistan Cyber Army – PCA – hacks into the Indian railway’s email system and downloads all confidential material, including email addresses and matching passwords. LINK
A 26-year-old hacker is charged with 13 cases of felony after hacking into Facebook accounts, stealing photos of young women and posting them on porn sites. LINK
A Turkish hackers group hacks the website of Cyberhackers.org. LINK
Indian hackers/codebreakers breaks into the servers of Pakistan Air Force. LINK
An employee claiming illegitimate firing claims he was able to break into, and take down, a 200 megawatt wind turbine system owned by NextEra Energy Resources. LINK
Media reports of growing threat to Western governments and corporations as they are under attack from hackers based in China. LINK
The European Space Agency – ESA – gets hacked by someone called TinKode. LINK
The server’s of the world’s largest blog community WordPress.com gets hacked. LINK
Epsilon’s Customer Lists of major Brands gets compromised. LINK
Hackers manage to infiltrate one of the world’s top computer-security companies, RSA. The company has about 40 million users/customers. LINK
A Pakistani hacker called KhantastiC hacks into the website thehackersparadise.com and adds his own page. LINK
The official website of the President of Pakistan gets hacked. LINK
The database of Spanish Escuela Universitaria Diseno gets hacked and dumped on the file sharing site rapidshare.com. LINK
An Indian hacker called Lionaneesh hacks and exposes the aviation website Planespotters.net. LINK
A Turkish hacker called OldChildz hacks the web portal of several famous Israeli companies. LINK
The British Cambridge Networks gets hacked by the Pakistani hacker Shak. LINK
An Indian hacking crew claims to have broken into 253 different websites. LINK
The website of The Film and Publication Board – FPB – gets hacked by someone called Dr.KroOoz. LINK
An Indian hacker called Angel 4k4 4d0r4b13 hacks the Pakistani railway’s database. LINK
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory gets hacked. LINK
A hacker called The 077 breaks into 20 websites run by the Chinese government. LINK
The website of CEH – Centennial Media Training – gets hacked. LINK
70 Indian websites gets hacked by Shadow008 who is a part of the Pakistani Cyber Army. LINK
All websites run by the Security Firm & News Company is breached by Indian hacker called I33t Haxors. LINK
Hackers break into The Hartford insurance company and install password-stealing software on several of the company’s windows servers. LINK
Computer producer ACER gets hacked by Pakistan Cyber Army. LINK
The British intelligence service MI6 hacks an Al-Qaeda website and replace a bomb making recipe with a cupcake recipe. LINK
The hacker group Lulzsec hacks the systems of Infragard Atlanta Members Alliance, a FBI affiliate and blows their cover. LINK
The Anonymous leaks more than 10 000 emails, stolen from the Iranian government. LINK
Chinese hackers cracks hundreds of US and Asian Gmail accounts. LINK
The website of PBS.org gets hit by a zero-day exploit. LINK
The official website of the upcoming movie Ra One – gets hacked and the defaced. LINK
The network of Television Company GMA-7 – including Twitter and Facebook – gets hacked by someone called D4RKB1T. LINK
A 14 year old hacker gets hired by Microsoft after doing phishing via Call of Duty Server. LINK
Hackers break into the servers of Lockheed Martin networks and US defense contractors. LINK
PC game company Comodo gets hacked, resellers private data exposed. LINK
The Anonymous takes down the website of US Chamber of Commerce after the Chamber approved the new Protect IP Act. LINK
More than 200 Indian official websites are reported hacked by someone called XtReMiSt. LINK
Another report on stealing and selling credit card information says the use of hacking techniques is increasing. LINK
Facebook prepares to launch a so-called Bug Bounty Program. LINK
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center gets hacked – again – by the hacker called TinKode. LINK
Another Facebook scam are reported. LINK
The website of famous football star Ronaldinho gets hacked by Osama bin Laden supporters. LINK
The Information Security and Ethical Hacing Training organization, Appin, gets hacked – once again. LINK
The hacker group Lulzsec hacks and release ATM information. LINK
Official report questions the security of US institutions like Department of Defense, Pentagon, NASA and NSA. LINK
Pakistan Cyber Army gets hacked by the Indian Cyber Army, Indishell. LINK
The website of Indian TV Channel V hacked by someone called MaDnI, a member of Pakistan Cyber Army. LINK
The Anonymous’ IRC networks – irc.anonops.net and irc.anonops.ru – gets hacked. LINK
India’s leading IT companies TCS – Tata Consu;tancy Services – and Tech Mahindra reports security breaches. LINK
The database of contestants in the popular TV show, X Factor, gets hacked and published on the net – available for download. LINK
Pakistani news site, Paktribune.com, is hacked and more than 800 emails/passwords stolen. LINK
Credit card Company, CCAvenue, hacked. LINK
Citibank reports theft of 200 000 credit card accounts. LINK
The International Monetary Fund confirms a major security breach. LINK

Download The Hackers News Magazine here:

Issue June 2011 : Rar File | PDF file

Issue May 2011: RAR Format | PDF Format

Related by the Econotwist’s:

IMF Cyber Attack Believed To Be From Foreign Government (inquisitr.com)
IMF in trouble by major cyber attack (itoddaily.com)
IMF hit by ‘major’ cyber attack (cash-bandit.com)
IMF Computers Said to Be Targeted in State-Based Cyber-Attack (businessweek.com)
Cyber War Continues; IMF New Target (tsobjective.wordpress.com)
Experts: Nation-state behind IMF cyber attack (msnbc.msn.com)
What The I.M.F. Hackers Were After (huffingtonpost.com)

Three months after the European Commission was hacked in a bid to get sensitive data on external relations and monetary issues, EU institutions are setting up a joint team of internet security experts. Brussels is also setting up a new Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to stave off future attacks.

“It was probably espionage, but this is very difficult to prove. We don’t expect to ever know if it was the case or not.”

Senior EU official

The attack in March – just a few days ahead of an EU summit on military strikes in Libya and on the euro zone debt crisis – saw commission systems attacked “in a very well-organised and targeted way, focusing on three or four keywords on external relations and monetary issues,” according to a senior EU official.

“It was probably espionage, but this is very difficult to prove. We don’t expect to ever know if it was the case or not,” the source added.

The contact did not reveal if any data was actually stolen.

The commission has not launched a criminal investigation at this stage and is still assessing the level of damage.

It has in the past three months beefed-up its email security, the EUobserver writes.

Up until the attacks email accounts could be accessed remotely by typing in a password. But now users have a special “security token” – a small device which generates a secondary password required to log on.

Brussels is also setting up a new Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) to stave off future attacks.

The unit will pull together existing IT security departments from the commission, the EU parliament and the EU Council to handle cyber attacks on all EU institutions and to share intelligence in real-time with CERTs in EU member states.

The new body is to run tests in June and to be fully operational by 1 October.

Otmar Lendl – the head of the Austrian CERT – says the new measure will not make EU systems impregnable.

“Prevention is very difficult. It’s like fire – even if you have a good fire brigade which sets up the best firewalls, you will still have fires. But CERTs certainly will help you deal with anything that happens and get a clearer response, as well as putting sensors in place and tools to monitor networks, so that you detect an attack early on.”

Detecting the fact that an attack is taking place is in itself not an easy thing.

The next step is to find out how the hacker got into the system, what documents have been accessed or changed and if any “time bombs” or “back doors” have been left behind to allow future access.

“At EU level, there are a lot of own little kingdoms, it’s not centralised like in a company – so it will be a difficult task,” Lendl explain.

National CERTs dealing with governments (GovCERTs) “also have to deal with various ministries, cities, local administrations and other stakeholders. So it’s not unusual,” he adds.

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