state-sponsored

Pierluigi Paganini December 20, 2020
COVID-19 themed attacks December 6 – December 19, 2020

This post includes the details of the COVID-19 themed attacks launched from December 6 – December 19, 2020. December 6 – Drug dealers are selling Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines on the darkweb While the United Kingdom announced the distribution of the COVID19 vaccine to the population drug dealers is selling ‘Pfizer COVID Vaccines.’ December 10 – […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 12, 2014
The network of USIS compromised by a cyber attack

Internal network of USIS was compromised by a cyber attack which has exposed Government Employees’ Data. Investigators speculate on a state-sponsored attack The USIS (U.S. Investigations Services), which provides background checks for the US government was recently hacked. This is the second data breach in a few months that threaten US government. The USIS recently acknowledged […]

Pierluigi Paganini February 05, 2013
US Department of Energy hit by a sophisticated cyber attack

It seems that suddenly US have discovered to be victim of a serious of cyber espionage campaigns that are targeting every sector from media to military and every time seems that is a must to blame the nightmare China. A report published in 2012 by the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission revealed that “U.S. industry […]

Pierluigi Paganini December 20, 2012
New attacks against banking, cyber Jihad or cyber warfare acts?

Last week the hacker group known as “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters” announced a series of attacks against principal banking and financial institutions publishing a message on Pastebin profile. The principal targets include organizations such as U.S. Bancorp, JPMorgan Chase&co, Bank of America, PNC Financial Fervices Group, and SunTrust Banks. In the period between the […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 16, 2012
Flame, miniFlame, the mystery of an on going cyber espionage campaign

Last May The Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (MAHER) detected a new targeted malware which hit the country, that has been named Flame, also known as Flamer or Skywiper, due the name of  its main attack module. MAHER wasn’t the only one to detect the agent, also Kaspersky Lab and CrySyS Lab identified the new dangerous malware, recognized […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 12, 2012
Who is attacking the financial world, and why?

Article published on The Malta Indipendent on October 7th 2012 Ron Kelson, Pierluigi Paganini, Fabian Martin, David Pace, Benjamin Gittins   Bank (in)Security:   Between the 1880s and the 1930s, physical bank burglaries were a substantial problem.  To counter these threats bank’s employed vaults to protect their contents from theft, unauthorised use, fire, natural disasters, and other […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 11, 2012
What is the Dorkbot worm that is attacking Skype’s users?

What could happen if a malware compromises a communication system adopted daily by 663 million users (info dated September 2011)? Security experts have spread an alert to Skype users about an ongoing attack that try to induce them to load a link that spreads malware. The famous voice-over-Internet application is totally changed from its original […]

Pierluigi Paganini July 08, 2012
ICS-CERT report, a worrying increase of cyber attacks

It’s been long debated the need to protect critical infrastructures from cyber attacks, cyber threats could hit foreign countries causing loss of human lives identically to a conventional attack. Don’t forget that similar attacks con be organized by state-sponsored hackers or cyber criminals with the different purposes, target destroying or cyber espionage. Emergency Response Teams […]