Security News
At least three alleged hacktivist groups working in support of Russian interests are likely doing so in collaboration with state-sponsored cyber threat actors, according to Mandiant. The Google-owned threat intelligence and incident response firm said with moderate confidence that "Moderators of the purported hacktivist Telegram channels 'XakNet Team,' 'Infoccentr,' and 'CyberArmyofRussia Reborn' are coordinating their operations with Russian Main Intelligence Directorate-sponsored cyber threat actors."
A hacktivist collective called GhostSec has claimed credit for compromising as many as 55 Berghof programmable logic controllers used by Israeli organizations as part of a "Free Palestine" campaign. "The group pivoted from their regular operations and started to target multiple Israeli companies, presumably gaining access to various IoT interfaces and ICS/SCADA systems, which led to possible disruptions," Cyberint noted on July 14.
Radware released a report revealing that the number of malicious DDoS attacks climbed by 203% compared to the first six months of 2021. This Help Net Security video provides information about the rise of DDoS activity launched by patriotic hacktivists.
Norway's National Security Authority published a statement yesterday warning that some of the country's most important websites and online services are being rendered inaccessible due to distributed denial of service attacks. DDoS attacks are a special type of cyberattack that causes internet servers to be overwhelmed by many requests and garbage traffic, rendering the hosted sites and services inaccessible for legitimate visitors and users.
A Malaysia-linked hacktivist group has attacked targets in India, seemingly in reprisal for a representative of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party making remarks felt to be insulting to the prophet Muhammad. The BJP has ties to the Hindu Nationalist movement that promotes the idea India should be an exclusively Hindu nation. According to Indian threat intelligence vendor CloudSEK and US-based security and application delivery vendor Radware, Sharma's remarks caught the attention of a Malaysia-linked group called DragonForce that has launched attacks against Indian targets and sought assistance from others to do likewise under the banner "#OpsPatuk".
Italy's Computer Security Incident Response Team has disclosed recent DDoS attacks against crucial government sites in the country over the past couple of days. DDoS is an attack that aims to deplete a server's available resources, making it unable to respond to legitimate user requests and rendering the sites it hosts inaccessible.
The Romanian national cyber security and incident response team, DNSC, has issued a statement about a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks targeting several public websites managed by the state entities. DNSC is now collaborating with other authorities in the country to map these attacks and mitigate their effect.
Telegram messaging has taken a pivotal role in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as it is being massively used by hacktivists and cybercriminals alike. According to a report from cybersecurity company Check Point, the number of Telegram groups has increased sixfold since February 24 and some of them, dedicated to certain topics, have ballooned in size, in some cases counting more than 250,000 members.
The U.S. Department of Justice yesterday announced updates on two separate cases involving cyberattacks-a Swiss hacktivist and a Russian hacker who planned to plant malware in the Tesla company. A Swiss hacker who was involved in the intrusion of cloud-based surveillance firm Verkada and exposed camera footage from its customers was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday with conspiracy, wire fraud, and identity theft.
The Justice Department has charged a Swiss hacker with computer intrusion and identity theft, just over a week after the hacker took credit for helping to break into the online systems of a U.S. security-camera startup. Swiss authorities said they had raided Kottmann's home in Lucerne late last week at the request of U.S. authorities.