Cyber warfare appears to be dominating headlines as these days. Be it a undercover teams hacking computers for ‘fun’ or alleged government agencies making an attempt to steal classified info, the net landscape has been reworked into a binary battleground.
Who desires a gun once you have a keyboard?
With several folks unlikely to hitch in on the action, ARN has assembled an inventory the foremost infamous cyber-attacks in history.
Robert tappan Morris and the Morris Worm (1988):
Creator of the primary laptop worm transmitted through the net, Morris, a student at Cornell University within the USA, claimed it his issue wasn’t aimed to damage however was created for the innocuous intent to see the grandness of the computer network.
Things went pear-shaped once the worm encountered a vital error and morphed into an epidemic that replicated speedily and started infecting different computers leading to denial of service. The damage? 6000 computers were reportedly affected inflicting AN calculable $10-$100 million greenbacks in repair bills.
While this event may well be fastened as being AN unfortunate accident, it little doubt vie a vicinity in exalting the disastrous distributed denial-of-service (DdoS) variety of attacks we tend to see these days.
MafiaBoy causes $1 billion dollars in damages (2000):
Another fifteen-year previous that caused mischief in cyber house was archangel Calce a.k.a. MafiaBoy.
In 2000, Calce, now 25, was simply a Canadian high school student once determined to unleash a DDoS attack on variety of high-profile industrial websites as well as Amazon, CNN, eBay and Yahoo!. A business knowledgeable calculable the attacks resulted during a $US1.2 billion greenback harm bill.
He was later understood. as a result of he was still a juvenile, Calce was sentenced in 2001 to eight months in open custody, which means his movements and actions would be restricted. His on-line access was additionally restricted by the court.
Calce and since scored gigs as a journalist and recently printed a book regarding his ordeal.
Google China hit by cyber-attack (2009):
When Google’s Chinese headquarters detected a security opening in mid-December, it displayed a full will of worms (pun intended) implicating the Chinese Government.
Hackers had gained access to many Google’s company servers and material possession was taken.
In a blog, Google aforesaid it’s “evidence to recommend that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinse human rights activists”. because the company mamma deeper, they found various Gmail of users from America, China and Europe had been habitually been accessed while not permission. Those emails belonged to advocates of human rights in China.
All eyes darted towards the Chinse Government, that has been suspect of flagrantly regardless human rights for years.
Google entered the Chinese market with WWW.google.cn in 2006 and capitulated to China’s tight web censorship regime. The cyber-attacks in Dec 2009 resulted within the company’s re-evaluation of its business within the country.
In March 2010, Google resettled its servers for google.cn to Hong Kong so as to flee China’s web filtering policy.
Teen hacks NASA and America Defense Department:
The year was 1999. jonathan James was fifteen at the time however what he did that year secured him an area within the hacker’s hall of fame.
James had managed to penetrate the computers of a America Department of Defense divison and put in a ‘backdoor’ on its servers. This allowed him to intercept thousands of internal emails from totally different government organizations as well as ones containing usernames and passwords for numerous military computers.
Using the taken info, James was able to steal a chunk of NASA software package that price the house exploration agency $41,000 as systems were closing for 3 weeks.
According to NASA, “the software package [purported to be price $1.7 million] supported the international house Station’s physical setting, as well as management of the temperature and humidness inside the way.”
James was later caught however received a light-weight sentence because of his young age.
He committed suicide in 2008 once he was suspect of conspiring with different hackers to steal Mastercard info. James denied the allegation in his suicide letter.
Phone lines blocked to win Porsche (1995)
Kevin Poulsen is known for his add hacking into the l. a. communication system during a bid to win a Ferrari on a radio competition.
LA KIIS FM was providing a Porsche 944 S2 to the 102th caller. Poulsen secured his success as he took management of the phone network and effectively blocked incoming calls to the radio station’s range.
He won the Porsche however the law wedged to him and he was sentenced to 5 years in jail.
Poulsen later became the senior editor for IT security publication, Wired News.
Hacker targets Scientology (2008):
In January 2008, a replacement Jersey adolescent beside a gang of hackers launched a DDoS attack that lame the Church of Scientology web site for many days.
The cluster is dubbed Anonymous and is stanchly against the ‘religion’.
Dmitriy Guzner, World Health Organization was nineteen years previous, was charged and condemned for the DDoS attack. the most penalty was ten years jail and a $250,000 fine however he was ultimately sentenced to 2 years’ probation and was ordered to pay the Church of Scientology $37,500.
A second man has been charged for the attack.
Solar Sunrise (1998):
Originally thought to possess been the efforts of Iraqi operatives, a scientific cyber-attack was launched within the America that appropriated management of over five hundred government and personal laptop systems. The hackers were exploiting computers running on the Sun Solaris software, thus collective attacks were referred to as ‘Solar Sunrise’.
The U.S. assembled variety of defense divisions as well as the FBI and therefore the Defense info Systems Agency to research the matter.
Much to everybody’s surprise, there have been no Iraqi operatives concerned within the hacking. Investigations resulted within the arrest of 3 teenagers from Golden State.
While it had been cased closed for ‘Solar Sunrise’, the attacks highlighted however a coordinated effort may have an effect on a whole country’s IT infrastructure.
The melissa virus (1999)
It was a really straightforward virus that over up cost accounting $80 million in damages.
The genus Melissa virus would infect Microsoft Word documents and mechanically disseminates itself as an attachment via email. it might send out to the primary fifty names listed in AN infected computer’s Outlook email address box.
The creator of genus Melissa, sculpturer, aforesaid he didn’t intend for the virus to damage computers however was still inactive and sentenced to twenty months in jail.
Incidentally, anti-virus software package sales went gangbusters that year.
Internet attacked (2002):
In 2002, a cyber-attack aimed squarely in any respect thirteen name system’s root servers within the America nearly brought the net to its knees. it had been a DDoS attack that lasted for one hour. whereas it doesn’t some sort of a while, it had been the dimensions of the attack that was most frightful.
At that point, America Federal authorities delineated the attack because the largest and most complicated in history.
Internet servers were severely strained for one hour though users in all probability didn’t expertise any adverse effects. however, if the attacks lasted from now on, it might have brought the net to a standstill.
Hacker steals tens of millions of Mastercard details (2009):
t Gonzales, a hacker from Miami, was answerable for one amongst the most important fraud case in America history.
Gonzales was answerable for protection tens of a lot of Mastercard and charge account credit numbers from over 250 money establishments. He had hacked the payment card network from firms as well as the 7-Eleven convenient store chain.
Facing a minimum of 3 separate cases associated with hacking in 3 states, Gonzales pled guilty in Dec.+