cyber espionage

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 […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 16, 2012
Government cyber strategies to mitigate growing cyber threats

In the last decade we have observed the raise of cyber attacks, no matter their purpose, cyber warfare or cyber espionage for military or private business, they have demonstrated how much dangerous is a cyber offensive. The U.S.’s leading cyberwarrior has estimated that private businesses are losing hundreds of billions to cyber espionage and cybercrimes, […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 06, 2012
A view on the economic impact of cyber attacks, from US to China

On June 28th, a FBI official declared before a House panel that the phenomenon of cyber espionage is increasing with an alarming trend. We are living a period of great crisis and the intellectual property is becoming a privileged target for cyber attacks. It has been estimated that the economic espionage in the current fiscal […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 05, 2012
Who really takes advantage of the operations of Anonymous?

I desire to tribute another article to the group that catch the  worldwide attention of security community, Anonymous. Few years to consolidate its image become one of the most debated phenomenon on internet, many consider the collective a threat, many other the expression of a dissent to listen. Both interpretations are correct, but let’s think […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 02, 2012
Drones vulnerable to hijacking, concerns on security and privacy

Last week a saw a satellite image taken by Google Earth related to a mysterious vehicle, apparently an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), parked at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California. “Skunk Works” LM’s Advanced Development Program Facility is where some of the most futuristic and secret projects are developed. The image was dated […]

Pierluigi Paganini June 30, 2012
Dalai Lama + Mac OS X = APT with Tibet malware

Another excellent discovery of the active experts of Kaspersky Labs that have identified a new variant of the malware used in Tibet against Uyghur hacktivists, a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. The instance of Tibet malware detected infects OS X machines and is spread following a consolidated schema for politically motivated […]

Pierluigi Paganini June 29, 2012
Stratfor refunds clients.Concerns on subcontractors in the security chain

Last Christmas the Stratfor Global Intelligence was hacked by Anonymous who disclosed company website and also the full client list of over 4000 individuals and corporations. The hacker gained access to a subscriber list stored on stratfor.com, and that list contained unencrypted credit card data. Stratfor is an organization that gathers open source intelligence which […]

Pierluigi Paganini June 25, 2012
The ‘cyber war’ era began long ago

Article published on The Malta Indipendent by Ron Kelson, Pierluigi Paganini, Benjamin Gittins, David Pace  US military strategist John Boyd states: “War comprises acts of physical, biological, psychological, social, cultural and other destruction at all levels, for example, intrapsychic, interpersonal, intergroup, interorganisational, and international.” Cyber warfare is combat in cyberspace and includes computers, the Internet and the […]

Pierluigi Paganini June 22, 2012
A virus specialized for AutoCAD, a perfect cyber espionage tool

In recent years we are assisting to a profoundly change in the nature of malware, it is increased the development for spy purposes, for its spread in both private and government sectors. The recent case of Flame malware has demonstrated the efficiency of a malicious agent as a gathering tool in a typical context of […]

Pierluigi Paganini June 16, 2012
The malware factory

Article Published on The Hacker New Magazine – June Edition “Malware” With the term malware we refer a heterogeneous family of malicious software designed with the purpose to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain unauthorized access to victims systems. With the term we indicate in fact several types of malicious code such as computer […]