The Cyber War: Complete Coverage
The International Monetary Fund,IMF, is the latest high-profile organization to become a victim
of network intrusion by hackers. According to several media reports, the IMF has suffered asubstantial security breach,of which the full extent is not yet known. Over the last few months,
cyber attacks have increased in both frequency and severity. The group of cyber activists,Anonymous,are currently involved in 9000 attacks on governments and corporations aroundthe world. Check out the stunning details.
“You still have the power to stand up for good. Do NOT come between us and our freedom. Youhave been warned.”
The Anonymous
According to the New York Times, quoting
an unnamed official, the IMF intrusion is a “very major”
one, and has been going on for several months. The actual dimensions of the attack are still unknown.
The IMF says that the Fund is “fully functional” and that the organization is investiga
ting the incident.Sony
A Bloomberg story,however, cited an unidentified security expert as saying that the attackers were
believed to be connected to an unspecified foreign government and that e-mails and other documentshad been taken.Dealing with the global financial crises, international trade and other monetary matters, the IMF is privyto sensitive economic information regarding a number of countries data that could be extremelyvaluable to investors and of great interest to governments.
The organization has also been criticized for its policies and accused of being responsible for
crises.The breach is the latest in a series of headline grabbing hacks that have involved the likes of
computer security company RSA,several U.S. military contractors,search giant and Web-based
e-mail purveyor Google,and Sony entertainment behemoth.
Shutting Down the World Bank
Cyber espionage and cyber warfare have been making headline news consistently for quite
some time.
Bloomberg quotes a memo to IMF employees by the organization’s chief information officer,
warning the staff to be vigilant:
“Last week we detected some suspicious file transfers, and the subsequent investig
ationestablished that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access someFund systems. At this point, we have no reason to believe that any personal information was
sought for fraud purposes.”
The memo also says that the IMF’s network c
onnection to the World Bank (which is headquarteredacross the street from the Fund) have been shut down
“as a precautionary measure.”
An earlier memo to employees has warned the IMF staff of phishing attacks, saying:
”Staff is strongly requested NOT TO O
PEN emails and video links without authenticating the
source.”
Bloomberg writes that the recent network breach is not associated with the group Anonymous,which had earlier threatened an attack on the Fund in association with IMF activities involving
the economically hobbled country of Greece.On Saturday, law enforcement officials in Spain said they had arrested several members of Anonymous in connection with attacks on entertainment giant Sony, as well as on governmentsand financial institutions
Hackers Go Wild
A wave of cyber attacks has left corporations and government organizations in a state of shock andconfusion.The Hacker News reportsthat they have received a message from the hacking group, Pakistan Cyber
Army
–
PCA
–
claiming the group has hacked Acer Europe’s server and stolen sensitive information.
THN have posted a screenshot of the data reportedly collected, which included the personalinformation of 40,000 customers, including their names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mailaddresses, and the names of products they had purchased.According to The Hacker News, the PCA plans to release more data within the next 24 hours,
and will follow that up with a press release discussing its reasons for hacking Acer’s Europe
division.Acer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, CNET.com reports.The Anonymous, which made headlines last year by hacking financial institutions and other
sites in defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange,recently made public more than 10,000 e-
mails it stole from Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to the International Business Times, quotea source who have viewed the
documents, most of the files are passports and visas, relate to an “oil meeting.”
NATO Gets a Warning
The organization has also launched a
new operation it’s calling Op NATO Black Fax/E
-mail Bomb.
Users can surf to the OpNATO page and send a free prewritten fax to the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization in defense of Anonymous. The organization has posted a list of fax numbers to the
page, and has asked supporters to send “as many [faxes] as you can” to those numbers.
“It has come to our attention that you have classified Anonymous a ‘potential threat to thesecurity of *your+ member states,’ and that you seek retaliation against us,”
reads the letter toNATO, which is made up of the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., among other countries. Anonymousgoes on to ask the member nations to
“retaliate against us in any manner you choose.” However, even if some of its members are jailed, the letter reads, the nations will find “that Anonymous continues to live on.”
Anonymous’ letter ends with the following threat:
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