The advent of the Internet was a turning point in modern history. It was the perfect tool for an increasingly globalized modern world, and has now become a daily necessity, like groceries. Unfortunately, everything comes at a price. The Internet also came with a whole new type of security threat that we still don’t have the tools to combat: cyberattacks.
Because we rely on products and services that operate on the World Wide Web, everything is now a potential target for various cyber attacks from anywhere in the world, which can easily escalate into a major disaster. Imagine the consequences of a massive power outage across the country or a hostile remote takeover of government nuclear facilities.
While real-world recorded attacks haven’t reached this scale yet, they’re not far behind. These 10 biggest cyberattacks in history prove that they’re becoming more frequent and sophisticated over time, despite the best efforts of law enforcement and cybersecurity agencies around the world.
10. Church of Scientology
We don't really know what exactly the Church of Scientology is or what it does, but that's not the point. Instead, we're here to focus on their cybersecurity infrastructure, which was seriously compromised back in 2008 by a new group of hackers called Anonymous. This was in response to what they called censorship, as one of their videos about Tom Cruise was removed by the church.
IN revenge hackers from around the world launched a coordinated campaign to take down websites associated with the church, along with other methods of semi-digital sabotage, such as spamming their office fax machines with a ton of messages. While unlikely to be lethal or make any real difference, it was the first attack Anonymous , which made headlines around the world. The hack itself mainly involved attacks type "denial of service" , which remain a popular and widely used method by hackers even today.
9. Teenage NASA hack
On the 21st day 1999 NASA systems were forced to shut down in what initially appeared to be a major coordinated attack on national security. Thirteen systems were compromised, including temperature and humidity controls in living quarters at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The total damage was more than $41,000 in equipment and labor costs.
The same hacker, known online as "c0mrade," was responsible for a parallel attack on the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency around the same time. They managed to hack the logins and passwords of 19 employees, using them to gain access to 10 military computers.
While this sounds like a serious attack on the United States by a foreign power, it turned out to be just a bored teenager. Jonathan James was just 15 years old when he was taken into custody and sent to a correctional facility institution in Alabama for assault. He was perhaps the youngest hacker to commit such a high-profile breach, which made him instantly popular in the growing hacker community of the time.
8. KIIS-FM
KIIS-FM was a popular radio station in Los Angeles back in 1990, popular for its weekly “Win a Porsche by Friday” contest. The prize was a Porsche 944 S2, and all you had to do to win was be the 102nd caller. This was the golden age of contests that were held exclusively on landlines across America, and you could find people all over Los Angeles using autodialers and other tricks to get lucky.
While this sounds like a secure system—at least for 1990, when computers were still in their infancy—it was not. June 1, 1999 Kevin Poulsen , a 24-year-old college dropout at the time, got together with several of his friends, waited for the 101st call, and began hacking and jamming all 25 of the station's phone lines before calling, making him the 102nd caller. Although he won the car, law enforcement soon discovered the hack.
Kevin was skilled at manipulating switching networks, and had previously been responsible for attacks on various telephone company systems, similar to the one used by KIIS-FM. Although he managed to remain on the run for some time after the hack, Kevin was eventually caught in April 1991 and sentenced to five years in prison. conclusions .
7. Sunrise
Solar Sunrise was the working title given to a large-scale, sophisticated attack on the Department of Defense in February 1998. The attackers gained complete control of more than 20 systems and used them to access sensitive information about institutions such as NASA, the U.S. Air Force, MIT, and others. They also stole the usernames and passwords of hundreds of employees, and the attacks appeared to originate from all over the world.
The perpetrators were initially believed to be Iraqi intelligence officers, as Later That same year, U.S. forces were preparing to bomb Iraq. The deputy secretary of defense even named It is "the most organized and systematic attack the Pentagon has ever seen."
After an extensive investigation involving multiple intelligence agencies, internet service providers and senior military officials around the world, the attackers were identified as two teenagers from California and one from Israel.
6. I want to cry
The aptly named WannaCry virus infected more than 230,000 Microsoft computers worldwide back in May 2017. It was ransomware — a type of malicious code that holds your computer hostage in exchange for something, usually cryptocurrency. In this case, the virus was able to block hundreds of thousands of users around the world from accessing their personal files and other data, demanding a significant amount of Bitcoin in exchange. Once the transaction is complete, the hackers send decryption keys to unlock the files.
It was like a digital pandemic and spread to hundreds of thousands of systems before it was even recognized as a single virus, although before To date, no specific hacker group has claimed responsibility for it. While the killswitch that stopped its spread was eventually discovered by a security researcher Marcus Hutchins , many users who refused to pay the ransom were never able to recover their files. The same attack allegedly was used against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd. in August 2018.
5. Sony PlayStation Network
Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN) and Qriocity — now Sony Entertainment Network — have been hit withattack in 2011. Hackers stole the data of more than 100 million users, including their names, addresses, dates of birth, usernames, passwords, security questions and other personal information. Although Sony denied that it contained credit card information, it did release a statement advising customers to scan their cardscompromised just in case.
This is one of, if not the most The biggest personal data breach in history, and we're still not entirely sure who did it. It was also a huge PR disaster for Sony, as it's also one of the largest repositories of credit card numbers in the U.S. The attack was directly related to a complete overhaul of Sony's cybersecurity infrastructure, as it took over three weeks to get everything back up and running.
4. MafiaFight
In February 2000 Several major digital retailers were hit by a massive denial of service attack. It targeted Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, CNN, and Dell, among others, which were early Internet-era startups. Needless to say, it caused quite a panic among investors on Wall Street, as the successful attack proved that they were not as secure as they claimed.
It was actually quite impressive, especially since it was done by a 15-year-old. Michael Kals, a high school senior at the time, lived in Quebec , Canada, first gained control of several university networks. He then used their combined computing power to launch major attacks, taking down all of the targeted websites within hours.
It was a high-profile case, as it prompted President Clinton to call a high-level security meeting and brought widespread media attention to the rapidly emerging problem of cyber attacks. The attack itself, however, was not intended to cause any real harm, as it was done as a kind of ploy against other hacker groups. Michael was eventually sentenced to eight monthsimprisonment in a juvenile colony .
3. Dean
Distributed denial of service attacks or DDoS -attacks aim to block users from accessing a specific online service. This could be something as innocuous as replacing a common website with meme images, or something as serious as denying security personnel access to their country's military installations. Fortunately, nothing like this has been tried yet, although DDoS attacks are certainly becoming more serious and sophisticated as time goes on.
The largest DDoS attack in history targeted Dyn, a major Internet domain name service. It’s like the Internet’s phone book, connecting IP addresses to website names and other locators behind the scenes. The attack brought down the websites of major Internet organizations like Netflix, Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, CNN, and PayPal, as well as media outlets like The New York Times And Wall Street Journal .
The attack was ultimately linked to by three hackers , Josiah White, Dalton Norman and Paras Jha, who pleaded guilty in December 2017.
2. Heartland Payment Systems Inc.
0
Heartland Payment Systems is a subsidiary of Global Payments, one of the largest payment systems in the United States. More in In 2008 It was the victim of what is now known as one of the worst security breaches in history, when its payment system was hacked and sensitive data, including credit card information, of tens of millions of customers was compromised. The true figure could also be much higher, as we still don’t know the exact extent of the attack.
The hack was attributed to someone Albert Gonzalez , as he was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for it. However, it was too late, as the damage had already been done. The hack will cost the company approximately $140 million in damages, plus payments Visa and American Express in the amount of $63.5 million, plus an additional $26 million in legal costs.
1. Mt.Goks
Mt.Gox was a cryptocurrency exchange based in Tokyo. By 2013, it had already established itself as the largest exchange in the growing field, which was still in its early stages and susceptible to hacking and manipulation. By some estimates, more than 70% of all bitcoins traded worldwide passed through Mt. Gox at its peak, making it an ideal target for aspiring hackers.
Of course, the exchange was hacked in 2014 and over a night more than 850 000 Bitcoin. It wasn’t even a very sophisticated attack, as the attackers simply used the order book to manipulate the price and make fraudulent trades to accumulate as many Bitcoins as possible. Thanks to the lack of regulation or government oversight in the cryptocurrency space, the attackers were never brought to justice, although over 200,000 Bitcoins were recovered over time. At the time of writing, the total value of the stolen coins is over $23 billion, making it the largest hack in history in terms of losses.
Оставить Комментарий