{"id":74243,"date":"2012-05-25T08:26:49","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T08:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.quickheal.com\/?p=74243"},"modified":"2012-05-25T08:26:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T08:26:49","slug":"future-watch-the-impending-dangers-of-hacktivism-and-political-hacking-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/future-watch-the-impending-dangers-of-hacktivism-and-political-hacking-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Watch I: The impending dangers of Hacktivism and political hacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anonymous<\/a>Hacktivism is a rising threat to cyber security that we are sure to see more of in the coming years. Out of the 174 million reported cyber crimes in 2011, around 100 million of them are related to hacktivism. This term refers to the hacking of networks or websites by a group for a political or social cause. ‘Anonymous’ is the most widely recognized hacktivist organization and their targets have been picked due to reasons like human rights abuse, privacy concerns, social messages and other related issues.<\/p>\n

The threat scenario once a target is picked translates either to a security breach or a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. Apart from this, data theft is also a serious concern. When enterprises or Governments are targeted, the financial loss or data loss risk is insurmountable. Website defacement is one of the most common attack vectors. It usually occurs in the shape of a condemning or accusatory message on the homepage of the breached website.<\/p>\n

Some hacktivist threats are carried out by Governments for privacy and censorship measures. This leads to file content viewing, keylogger program installation, screenshot captures, information sent to remote IP addresses and email\/social media account hacking. Private lives of prominent people and public figures are also under public scrutinization.<\/p>\n

In the coming years, the convergence of hacktivism and social media seems imminent. The reach of networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. could lead to large scale coordinated attacks and in some instances, physical demonstrations. Hacktivists have already shown their prowess in the case of the Syrian President (targeted by Anonymous). The case of Egyptian protests utilizing social media also demonstrated the power that hacktivists possess.<\/p>\n

Notable hacktivist incidents:<\/strong><\/center> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

DATE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

VICTIM<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

SOURCE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

REASON<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

December 2010<\/span><\/td>\nMasterCard and Visa websites<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nShutting down of payments to WikiLeaks<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
January 2011<\/span><\/td>\nTunisian Govt and Egyptian Govt<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nIn support of anti-censorship and the opposition respectively<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
April 2011<\/span><\/td>\nSony PlayStation Network<\/span><\/td>\nUnknown<\/span><\/td>\nUnknown<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
July 2011<\/span><\/td>\nMonsanto (a biotech firm)<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nProtest against oil companies<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
July 2011<\/span><\/td>\nNATO<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nUnknown<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
July 2011<\/span><\/td>\nNews Corp<\/span><\/td>\nLulzsec<\/span><\/td>\nFor the phone hacking scandal<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
July 2011<\/span><\/td>\nApple<\/span><\/td>\nAntisec<\/span><\/td>\nExploited security flaw in software<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
August 2011<\/span><\/td>\nRIM<\/span><\/td>\nTeam Poison<\/span><\/td>\nProtest against RIM helping police track BlackBerry’s used in London riots<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
August 2011<\/span><\/td>\nGovt of Syria<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nCalling for downfall of the President<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
October 2011<\/span><\/td>\n40 child pornography sites<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nOperation Darknet<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
January 2012<\/span><\/td>\nDept of Justice, FBI, MPAA and Universal Music<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nIn support of SOPA\/PIPA and opposing the shutdown of ‘megaupload’<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 2012<\/span><\/td>\nCIA<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nUnknown<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 2012<\/span><\/td>\nUnited Nations<\/span><\/td>\nCasi <\/span><\/td>\nHackers posted vulnerabilities<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 2012<\/span><\/td>\nFoxconn<\/span><\/td>\nSwagg Security<\/span><\/td>\nProtest against abuse of human labor rights<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 2012<\/span><\/td>\nSyrian President<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nHis emails were revealed to the world<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 2012<\/span><\/td>\nSymantec<\/span><\/td>\nUnknown<\/span><\/td>\nTried to extort $50,000<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
February 2012<\/span><\/td>\nTexas police, Boston police and Salt Lake City police<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nReasons related to child porn, anti-graffiti bills and Occupy Boston<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
May 2012<\/span><\/td>\nIndian Congress and Supreme Court website<\/span><\/td>\nAnonymous<\/span><\/td>\nIn support of Pirate Bay and free speech on the web<\/span><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 
\nWhile hacktivists have been targeting enemies of privacy and free speech so far, the fact remains that these organizations are acting like masked vigilantes. At times they have no clearly stated goals so conflict of interest becomes inevitable. These techniques could be used for extortion and harassment. For instance, Anonymous is a faceless group and the identities of its members are unknown so there is no telling what their motives are.<\/p>\n

Hence, it becomes important to distinguish between different kinds of hackers. White-hat hackers breach networks for altruistic reasons while grey-hat hackers have questionable ethics and can use their skills for non-altruistic purposes. Black-hat hackers are the worst of the kind since they utilize their hacking skills for criminal purposes only.<\/p>\n

With all kinds of different threats looming around, one needs multi-layered protection that will help protect not only from malware and viruses but also from such new generation threats. Both Quick Heal Internet Security<\/a> and Quick Heal Total Security<\/a> are products that provide the right mix of multi-layered protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hacktivism is a rising threat to cyber security that we are sure to see more of in the coming years. Out of the 174 million reported cyber crimes in 2011, around 100 million of them are related to hacktivism. This term refers to the hacking of networks or websites by a group for a political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,129],"tags":[126,127,58,130,47],"class_list":["post-74243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-future-watch","category-hacktivism","tag-anonymous","tag-ddos","tag-hacking","tag-hacktivism","tag-security"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickheal.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}