Despite the numerous security incidents that took place during the first quarter of the year, the fight against cyber crime is on the right track, and though there is still a long way to go, international co-operation among security agencies is beginning to pay off and criminals around the world are being brought to justice.
“The start of the year has seen some serious cyber attacks, including the hacking of the Twitter accounts of major organizations such as the BBC or Burger King, and one of the biggest attacks ever, targeting some of the world’s leading technology companies: Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter. But there have been some victories for security forces as well, including the arrest of a group of hackers accused of extortion using the infamous ‘Police Virus,’” says Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs.
Also in January, the FBI published details of an investigation that began in 2010 and thwarted a gang of cyber criminals who had infected more than a million computers since 2005.
On February 1, Twitter published an article on its blog (“Keeping our users secure”) detailing how the social network had fallen victim to an attack resulting in unauthorized access to the details of some 250,000 Twitter users. A couple of weeks later, Facebook also released an article on its blog, “Protecting People On Facebook,” acknowledging that their systems had been targeted by a sophisticated attack. The Twitter account of car company Jeep was also the victim of a similar attack, in this case stating that the company had been bought out by Cadillac. On January 30, The New York Times ran a front-page article explaining how they had been victims of an attack that had allowed their computers to be accessed and spied on for months.
Interestingly, in both incidents the attackers were able to access all types of data (customer details, etc.), yet only focused on information about journalists and employees, trying to find any reference to investigative journalism regarding China, and in particular, looking for the papers’ sources.
Some weeks later, Mandiant published a damning 76-page report (APT1: Exposing One of China’s Cyber Espionage Units, http://intelreport.mandiant.com/) explaining how Unit 61398 of the Chinese army has specialized in cyber-espionage. The report revealed more than 3,000 pieces of evidence showing how this unit has been running since at least 2006, stealing information from no less than 141 organizations worldwide.
For some years now, people have turned their gaze to China whenever this type of incident occurs, yet without any real evidence that the Chinese government is behind such attacks. Now, for the first time, it has been proven that the Chinese army is actively involved in espionage on a global scale, infiltrating companies across many sectors and stealing information,” explained Corrons.
Link: http://www.dfinews.com/news/2013/05/fight-against-cyber-crime-right-track