Category Archives: Cyberwar/attacks

Iran says has detected Duqu computer virus

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This is a part of the story from:

Reuters 

EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

By Hossein Jaseb

TEHRAN | Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:20pm EST

(Reuters) – Iran said on Sunday it had detected the Duqu computer virus that experts say is based on Stuxnet, the so-called “cyber-weapon” discovered last year and believed to be aimed at sabotaging the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites.

The head of Iran’s civil defense organization told the official IRNA news agency that computers at all main sites at risk were being checked and that Iran had developed software to combat the virus.

“We are in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus,” Gholamreza Jalali, was quoted as saying. “The final report which says which organizations the virus has spread to and what its impacts are has not been completed yet.

“All the organizations and centers that could be susceptible to being contaminated are being controlled,” he said.

News of Duqu surfaced in October when security software maker Symantec Corp said it had found a mysterious virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet.

While Stuxnet was aimed at crippling industrial control systems and may have destroyed some of the centrifuges Iran uses to enrich uranium, experts say Duqu appeared designed to gather data to make it easier to launch future cyber attacks.

Symantec said: “Duqu is essentially the precursor to a future Stuxnet-like attack.” Instead of being designed to sabotage an industrial control system, the new virus is designed to gain remote access capabilities, it said in a report issued last mont

Brotherhood sites hacked and shut down by Anonymous group

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From AHRAM.ORG.EG

The Anonymous hackers’ group lived up to their threat to launch ‘Operation Brotherhood Shutdown’ on Friday, overloading four of the Brotherhood’s sites

Ahram Online, Saturday 12 Nov 2011

The Muslim Brotherhood websites were attacked yesterday by hackers claiming to be from the “Anonymous” international hacking group.

The hacking group had made an announcement Tuesday in which they threatened to launch “Operation Brotherhood Takedown,” on all Brotherhood sites at 8pm on Friday, 11 November.

The Brotherhood claimed in a statement released on Saturday morning that the attacks were coming from Germany, France, Slovakia and San Francisco in the US, with 2000-6000 hits per second.

According to the MB, the attacks began at 6pm on Friday with the worst assault against the group’s official website, Ikhwanonline, with 120 thousand hits per second.

The hackers later escalated their attack on the site to 380 thousand hits per second.

Under the overload, four of the group’s websites were forced down temporarily.

Anonymous is made up of a group of unidentified hackers who have previously attacked Israeli, Russian and NATO sites.

Around the world in DDOS attacks

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Well today Italy was added to the list of originating nations that are attacking my website. So far, most attacks are from Germany, the Netherlands, and now Italy. But my money is on Iran. I am betting that is where the actual directions are coming from.

Look forward to quite a stunning video from Iranian TV which is being translated now and has quite a few revelations that show the ambitions, intentions and general attitude of the current regime there. At least I may as well earn this attack. I hope to have it up here within a day or two. And once I do, I hope that all of you who have websites will grab the embed and put it on your own site, or even download it and re-upload it to youtube or wherever you host video.

Eeyore for Vlad

Death threats force French ‘Mohammed’ paper offline

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I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that it was the same primitive savages who attacked this blog yesterday with a DDOS attack originating out of Amsterdam, who also attacked the ISP below. I say primitive savages because a savage can easily direct an aircraft at a building, for example, while a civilized person can construct either or both and have them work in harmony till the savages get a hold of them.

Eeyore

From Expatica

The website of the French satirical weekly that was firebombed after publishing images of the Prophet Mohammed was offline Thursday because of death threats against the Belgian company hosting it.

Host Bluevision took Charlie Hebdo’s site offline after it was the victim of a cyberattack following Wednesday’s issue featuring Mohammed as “guest editor” and has remained offline after the company received death threats.

Bluevision “doesn’t want to put it back online (because) they received death threats,” charliehebdo.fr’s editor Valerie Manteau told AFP.

“Either the police reassure them and we manage to convinced them to put it back online, or we change host.”

Charlie Hebdo’s Paris offices were firebombed early Wednesday after it published a special Arab Spring edition with Mohammed on the cover as “guest editor” saying: “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter!”

The newspaper’s website was also hacked, with its regular home page replaced with a photo of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and a message reading: “No god but Allah”.

French news site nouvelobs.com said the cyberattack was carried out by Turkish hacker group Akincilar, which said it took the action to “fight against a publication that attacks beliefs and moral values.”

Manteau said that Charlie Hedbo’s Facebook page would soon be closed to outside comments after thousands vented their anger over the weekly’s “Sharia Hebdo” edition, including by making death threats.

“Police are collecting the data of those who have posted death threats,” said Manteau. “As soon as they’ve finished, we will close the comments page.”

 

© 2011 AFP

Site under DDOS attack. Again.

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Some of you may have noticed that we were down for a while today. Not for the first time, the site has been under a DDOS attack, and this time, according to the tech people, a fairly impressive one in terms of its intensity.

We have managed to stop it for now though. I hope to post a few more articles tonight that will expose the culture, politics and religion of the kind of people who likely attacked my website.

Israeli-Turkish Cyberwar Begins

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Israel National News

Turkish hackers launched a DNS attack on 350 Israeli websites in what experts believe was a test run for attacks on Israeli domains.
By Gavriel Queenann

First Publish: 9/6/2011, 7:04 PM

 

Cyberwarfare

Cyberwarfare
Wikicommons

Amid the current diplomatic impasse between Ankara and Jerusalem, Turkish hackers hijacked some 350 Israeli websites on Sunday evening, launching a Domain Name System (DNS) attack on dozens of other websites as well.

Israeli IT analysts said Tuesday the DNS hijacking is likely to be, in fact, a “test-run” ahead of a major attack on Israeli domains.

Visitors to some of the sites were diverted to a page declaring it was “World Hackers Day.”

At least seven high-profile websites outside Israel were also hijacked, including those of The Telegraph, Acer, National Geographic, UPS and Vodafone.

Hackers calling themselves the “TurkGuvenligi group” claimed they had done the cyber-attack. TurkGuvenligi translates as “Turkish security.”

“The hack represents a 10%-15% spike compared to the average number of daily hacks of Israeli websites,” Shai Blitzblau, head of Maglan-Computer Warfare and Network Intelligence Labs, explained.

The operation was very sophisticated and probably entailed a significant financial investment, Blitzblau added.

An inquiry into the hack attack discovered a clear link to “TurkGuvenligi,” as well as several failed attempts to hack other websites.

Israel’s military and security establishment has invested significantly in cyber-warfare programs in recent years and is considered one of the most advanced cyber-warfare forces in the world, both in attack and defense modes.

The Stuxnet virus that downed systems at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor to a halt for over six months is widely believed to have been the result of an Israeli cyber-attack, although Israel has not admitted it.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Launches Cyber Attack: Report

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From Huffington Post:

Iran Cyber Attack

NASSER KARIMI   03/14/11 05:41 AM   AP

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian hackers working for the powerful Revolutionary Guard’s paramilitary Basij group have launched attacks on websites of the “enemies,” a state-owned newspaper reported Monday in a rare acknowledgment from Iran that it’s involved in cyber warfare.

The report followed an announcement in January that Iran had formed its first cyber police unit in an attempt by authorities to gain an edge in the digital world.

The Internet has also been a key outlet for Iran’s opposition since the 2009 disputed presidential election. In addition, Iran has been trying to boost its web defenses after the Stuxnet computer worm made its way into computers involved with the country’s controversial nuclear program.

Gen. Ali Fazli, acting commander of the Basij, was quoted by state-owned IRAN paper as saying Iran’s cyber army is made up of university teachers, students and clerics. He said its attacks were a retaliation for similar attacks on Iran, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. There were no further details about the possible targets or the time of the attacks.

“As there are cyber attacks on us, so is our cyber army of the Basij, which includes university instructors and students, as well as clerics, attacking websites of the enemy,” Fazli said. “Without resorting to the power of the Basij, we would not have been able to monitor and confront our enemies.” Continue Reading →

Seems the PM of Turkey is some pissed at the US over Wikileak material

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Thanks to the efforts of some very kind people nearby, I managed to get this highly amusing video translated of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an desperately attempting to threaten his way out of the allegations against him exposed by wikileaks.

Below the video, some details from Hurrietdaily

Wednesday, December 1, 2010
ANKARA – Hürriyet Daily News

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. DAILY NEWS photo, Selahattin SÖNMEZ
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. DAILY NEWS photo, Selahattin SÖNMEZ

In a harshly worded response to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an said Wednesday that he would file legal action again U.S. envoys he accused of making false claims against him.

Speaking during a municipal ceremony in Ankara, Erdo?an called on the U.S. administration to take action to discipline the diplomats who “slandered” him in the leaked State Department documents.

“This is the United States’ problem, not ours… Those who have slandered us will be crushed under these claims, will be finished and will disappear,” the prime minister said in his first comprehensive comments about the WikiLeaks release.

“My friends are working [to take action] against these diplomats in terms of national and international law. We will continue this process there. Thereafter, they [the diplomats] have to think [about the consequences],” Erdo?an said. “We have discussed these issues with the U.S. administration. They have extended their apologies, but it’s not enough. They have to take all necessary measures against these diplomats.” Continue Reading →

Stuxnet worm rampaging through Iran: IT official

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TEHRAN (AFP) – The Stuxnet worm is mutating and wreaking further havoc on computerised industrial equipment in Iran where about 30,000 IP addresses have already been infected, IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

“The attack is still ongoing and new versions of this virus are spreading,” Hamid Alipour, deputy head of Iran’s Information Technology Company, was quoted as saying by IRNA, Iran’s official news agency.

Stuxnet, which was publicly identified in June, was tailored for Siemens supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, systems commonly used to manage water supplies, oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities.

The self-replicating malware has been found lurking on Siemens systems mostly in India, Indonesia and Pakistan, but the heaviest infiltration appears to be in Iran, according to researchers.

The hackers, who enjoyed “huge investments” from a series of foreign countries or organisations, designed the worm to exploit five different security vulnerabilities, Alipour said while insisting that Stuxnet was not a “normal” worm.

He said his company had begun the cleanup process at Iran’s “sensitive centres and organisations,” the report said.

Analysts say Stuxnet may have been designed to target Iran’s nuclear facilities. But Iranian officials have denied the Islamic republic’s first nuclear plant at Bushehr was among the addresses penetrated by the worm.

“This virus has not caused any damage to the main systems of the Bushehr power plant,” Bushehr project manager Mahmoud Jafari said on Sunday.

He, however, added the worm had infected some “personal computers of the plant’s personnel.”

Alipour, whose company is tasked with planning and developing networks in Iran, said personal computers were also being targeted by the malware.

“Although the main objective of the Stuxnet virus is to destroy industrial systems, its threat to home computer users is serious,” Alipour said.

The worm is able to recognise a specific facility’s control network and then destroy it, according to German computer security researcher Ralph Langner, who has been analysing the malicious software. Continue Reading →

Stuxnet computer worm ‘targeted Iranian nuclear power station’ in world’s most sophisticated virus attack

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By Niall Firth
Last updated at 3:18 PM on 23rd September 2010

The world’s first cyber ‘super weapon’ may have been specifically designed to target a nuclear power station, experts believe.

A computer virus called Stuxnet was first detected in June and has been described as one of the most sophisticated ‘worms’ ever created.

Now internet security experts fear that it was created to target a real-world installation such as a power station, possibly in Iran.

The worm targets computer systems that are not connected to the internet for security reasons. Instead it infects PCs running Microsoft Windows via infected USB memory drives.

The Bushehr nuclear plant may have been the target for the cyber attack, experts believThe Bushehr nuclear plant may have been the target for the cyber attack, experts believe

After it has hijacked a PC, Stuxnet looks for Siemens software that runs industrial control systems in facilities like factories and power plants.

It then launches an attack by reprogramming software to give any industrial machinery new, potentially dangerous, instructions.

It is capable of taking control of key processes and is able to set off a sequence that could cause the entire system to self-destruct, say experts.

David Emm, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky, said what made Stuxnet different from other viruses was its targeted nature.

His firm has worked with Microsoft to find holes in their code which could be exploited by the worm.

Mr Emm said: What sets it apart is that it is not indiscriminate. Most viruses that are created are normally blasted out like a blunderbuss. But Stuxnet is written to only target a certain systems.

‘It finds flaws in code and uses it like an open window in a house, like a jemmy to make a bigger gap’, he said. Continue Reading →

South Korea on alert: Possible cyber attack from North

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S. Korea on alert for possible N. Korean cyber attack

Reported by Kyodo on Wednesday, 28 July 2010 (7 hours ago) Kyodo
South Korea‘s presidential office is on alert against a possible cyber attack by North Korea after receiving related intelligence reports, the presidential spokeswoman said Wednesday. ”The National Cyber Security Center obtained intelligence on a (possible) cyber attack and (the presidential office) was placed on alert as of yesterday to actively cope with things if the hacking happens,” Kim Hee Jung said in a press briefing.