The biggest cyber-attack was sparked this spring when a screen appeared on the screen of US IT staff inviting them to update their popular Solar Windows software.
The United States has officially identified Russia as the main culprit in recent widespread cyberattacks against its intelligence and security infrastructure, U.S. officials have blamed Moscow for the attack, accusing it of being behind a recent major cyber-attack that it says targeted other countries.
The cyber-attacks targeted the Treasury Department, the Department of Commerce and National Intelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security. Meanwhile, the American newspaper Politico wrote in a report that there is evidence that hackers have gained access to the network of the US Department of Energy and the US National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages US nuclear weapons stockpiles.
"A lot of work has been done, and I think it's very clear that the Russians were behind this," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a television network Friday night. "The cyber-attack has been going on for nine months, during which time hackers have done whatever they wanted on US sensitive military, commercial, nuclear and financial systems."
This spring, when a screen appeared on the screen of IT staff inviting them to update the popular Solar Windows software, the spark for this cyber attack was ignited. Following this invitation, 18,000 employees in various companies and governments seriously downloaded it for their offices. Unaware that the downloaded file is an explosive trap.
Now, security groups in the targeted organizations need a long time to figure out which emails were read, which information was stolen, and which passwords were leaked.
"This is probably the biggest influence on Western governments since the Cold War," said Alan Woodward, a university professor and national security researcher at the University of Surrey. Just think about why countries are spying. It gives them superiority, and this superiority is not just military, especially in peacetime. "Achieving economic superiority in various ways is one of the main reasons for countries to engage in intelligence-gathering operations."
Following the escalation of tensions after the US accused Russia of cyberattacks on Russian government agencies, Washington announced its decision to close its two remaining consulates in the Russian cities of Vlad Yostok and Yekaterinburg. The closure of the two consulates was announced 10 days ago, but has not been reflected in the media.
Diplomats from the two centers will be transferred to the US embassy in Moscow, and local forces will be laid off. Meanwhile, John Bolton, a former US national security adviser, stressed that the US 's top priority should be appropriate revenge to restore deterrence.
Super hacks
The United States, as a stepping stone to cyber attacks, has been caught in one of the largest attacks in history. Under this pretext, l have looked at major cyber attacks.
Americans have always been the mainstay of major cyberattacks, but now they themselves are in a security crisis and have been attacked by hackers. The US government is embroiled in a large and complex hacking operation that has affected high-ranking federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Treasury and the Commerce Department, and is said to be the target of the cyber-weapons arsenal.
Officials have warned that the attack poses a serious threat to federal, state and local governments, as well as "important infrastructure entities." Although the hack was allegedly carried out by Russia, Putin has denied it. However, in this article, while examining this great hack, I have mentioned some historical hacks.
The attack is in progress
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) warned in a statement that the true scale of the intrusion was not yet known, but appeared to be beyond the US government. Microsoft has also been hacked as part of the campaign's goals, Reuters reported, citing informed sources.
The hack began in early March (late March of last year) when a malicious update code secretly entered the network in the United States, allowing hackers to remotely access an organization's networks, including its internal emails. However, the content that the hackers stole and how successful they are has not yet been determined.
What has become clear so far is that hackers have at least tracked emails or some information from the US Department of Defense, State Department, Treasury, Homeland Security and Commerce. Politico had previously reported targeting the National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the country's nuclear arsenal.
Russia denies: Although the group that carried out the massive hack against the United States is said to be Russian, Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied the allegations. Another point is that although the group has long been working to infiltrate US government networks, the final blow came almost immediately after Biden was recognized as President-elect by the Electoral Commission.
The biggest hacks in history
In recent years, hacks and security breaches have affected major technologies. Want to know what the worst hacks in history were and how they were done? In the following, I will review 6 prominent and unforgettable hacks in the world of cyber security.
Melissa 1999 virus
Developed by David Smith and introduced in 1999, the virus finds itself as a Word file in emails, but as soon as the file is clicked, the virus reproduces and 50 copies for the top 50 names in the contact list. The victim was sending.
It is estimated that almost 20% of all computers in the world at that time were infected with the virus. In other words, one in five computers in the world fell victim to the Melissa virus. Melissa did not steal any sensitive information, but many businesses were paralyzed for days.
Hacking American Businesses 2005 to 2012
It is said to be the largest hack ever detected in the United States. It all started in 2005 and several brands became targets for a Russian hacking group. In a period of 7 or 8 years, this group was able to steal 160 million credit card numbers and break into 800,000 bank accounts.
Researchers believe the group was directly or indirectly responsible for causing $ 300 million in damage worldwide. Russian hackers allegedly sold some information on the black market for $ 15 per credit card number and used the rest of the information to steal money from bank accounts.
Pentagon hack and 2 million 2006 credit cards
Max Ray Butler worked as a computer security consultant in the 1990s and became a black hat hacker in the early 2000s, serving 18 months in prison for hacking the Pentagon. After returning from prison, Butler resumed hacking, and in 2006 hacked several online forums that were actually a marketplace for buying and selling stolen information and fake identities.
He was arrested in 2007 and charged with stealing 2 million credit card numbers and causing a loss of $ 86.4 million. Butler was released in 2019 after serving a 13-year sentence, the longest sentence in the history of hacking, and said he hoped to return to the world of cybersecurity consulting.
New York Stock Exchange Hack 2010
In late 2010, the Russians sought to hack into New York Stock Exchange systems. The FBI was the first organization to notice the effort, and monitoring showed that malware may have made its way into stock market servers. No one had ever been able to launch a successful attack on such a target.
Eventually all the clues went to Russia and it turned out that the hackers wanted to steal $ 11 billion from the New York stock market. If this attack were to be done, it could cause a major upheaval in the US internal systems as well as in the US economy. Although the Americans eventually cracked down on hackers, it was only for the first time that stock exchange systems were found to have many vulnerabilities.
Yahoo Hacks 2013 and 2014
Yahoo was once the king of search engines, and today we don't even hear its name. One of the main reasons for Yahoo's decline was the announcement in 2016 that two very large hacks had taken place years ago. We heard that in 2013, more than one billion (yes, you read that right, one billion) Yahoo accounts were compromised, and information such as emails, security questions, contact details, and passwords all fell into the hands of hackers.
In 2014, about 500 million more accounts were hacked. It was the biggest hack of an Internet company in history that certainly did not help Yahoo's reputation for persuading its users to reuse its services. Chinese and Russian agents are said to have been behind the widespread attacks.
Twitter Hack 2020
Although throughout history we have had major organized hacks such as the Stuxnet virus, etc., but one of the most important of these hacks was related to the Twitter hack of world famous personalities in which hackers were able to Twitter account of Barack Obama, Joe Biden , Hacked Ilan Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and several other American celebrities and sent private messages to millions of their followers through their accounts, asking for Bitcoin sponsorship promises to double the donation. Of course, the hackers, two young men aged 19 and a young man 22, were arrested.
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Nice and fascinating article, Personally love hacking.