cyber espionage

Pierluigi Paganini August 17, 2012
Botnet around us, are we nodes of the Matrix?

Article Published on The Hacker New Magazine – August Edition “Botnet” Introduction The nightmare of millions of infected computers synchronized to conduct an attack on specific target finds materialization in the concept of botnet. In the classic architecture each machine, named bot, executes orders sent by a master unit called bootmaster, which can instruct the various […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 14, 2012
Finfisher, the case of a cyber espionage tool found everywhere

Two days ago, reading the news that lawful interception malware FinFisher was discovered in the wild I thought … “wow finally we have the evidence, probably we will debate for a long time regarding the use of this tool and of similar agents” But as fate would have it the same day came the news […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 10, 2012
Gauss, evidence of ongoing cyber-war and cyber espionage campaigns

As expected a new malware for purposes of cyber espionage was once again identified by the Team of Kaspersky Lab. After Duqu, Flame and Mahdi a new cyber-espionage toolkit has been detected in the same region, the Middle East, and like its predecessor is capable of stealing sensitive data such as online banking credentials, browser passwords and […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 03, 2012
Facebook, more than 83 million questionable profiles.The poisoned networks

Crazy … a year ago on a warm June evening I began to formalize some ideas on a concept of great relevance today, the “social network poisoning”. I am the person who coined the term, proposing the scientific community with some colleagues who share my ideas as Andrea Zapparoli Manzoni and Kalos Bonasia. Immediately I inserted […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 31, 2012
Rakshasa, is it possible design the perfect hardware backdoor?

Every day we read about new powerful variants of malware of increasing complexity, they are used in fraud schemas by cyber criminals and in cyber attacks during state sponsored operations in cyber warfare scenarios. This malicious software presents a wide range of purposes and functionalities, they are used to steal information or to destroy control […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 27, 2012
Anonymous #op_Australia, data breach and reflections on utopian privacy

This time target of attacks of the Anonymous group is the Australian government,  at least 10  websites were taken down to protest proposed changes to privacy laws. The government want to force national ISP to spy on users make available their information to law enforcement and security agencies. The Anonymous Australia collective in a mail […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 26, 2012
New Madi instance and “AC/DC” virus, Middle East as shooting range

The Middle East has always been considered an area of the planet’s turbulent for the continuing conflict and political tensions among the states that inhabit it. In the last two years, the tensions seem to have intensified and with it has grown the diffusion of malware for cyber espionage and for offensive purposes. In the […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 25, 2012
Japan institutions victim of cyber espionage, is it cyber warfare?

One of the biggest cyber threat is cyber espionage, it’s the sign of the technological era in which every devices surround has an intelligence component that could be exploited. Governments first, cyber criminal after, have discovered the great efficiency of malware used to steal sensible information to the victims, no matter if we are speaking […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 19, 2012
UK cyber strategy discussed in ISC report 2011/2012

The elaboration of a proper cyber strategy is one the main target of intelligence services all around the world. We often discuss of US and Israel, but also European governments are pushing to reinforce their presence in the cyber space. The fear of cyber attacks against critical infrastructures is high, it is a common strategy […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 18, 2012
Mahdi campaign, ongoing cyber-espionage in the Middle East

Again another great investigation of the excellent team of Kaspersky lab and its partner Seculert firm has discovered an ongoing campaign to conduct a large scale infiltration of computer systems in the Middle East area. The campaign has targeted individuals across several states of the area such as Iran, Afghanistan and also Israel. The operation […]