http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/09/israel-austria-germany-switzerland-cyber-attack-cybertinel.html# <http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2014/09/israel-austria-germany-switzerland-cyber-attack-cybertinel.html>
Israeli company uncovers international cyber spy network Author Raphael Kahan September 4, 2014 Internet LAN cables are pictured in this photo illustration, June 23, 2011. (photo by REUTERS/Tim Wimborne) The Israel-based CYBERTINEL announced on Sept. 2 that it had uncovered an international cyber espionage infrastructure hitting organizations, institutions and companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The company said the hackers had been attacking more than 300 leading financial institutions, industrial companies, research laboratories and government agencies in the countries for over a decade. The attack was code-named the “Harkonnen Operation.” The breach was discovered when a CYBERTINEL security platform was implemented across the organizational network of a German company. [The breach] was detected on the PC of a senior executive in the company. An investigation tracing the source of the breach revealed that this specific attack was just the tip of the iceberg of a cyber espionage infrastructure. It emerged from the analysis and research work done [by CYBERTINEL] that the hackers had first penetrated computer networks as far back as 2002. It was further discovered that, to cover up the cyber attacks, the cybercrime organization incorporated 833 shell companies registered in the UK. These companies thus obtained the required SSL certificates enabling them to pose as legitimate Internet services. Next, the cybercrime organization located key figures within the companies under attack, managed to penetrate the targeted companies’ secure internal networks and gained access to the workstations of their top executives. That way, the attacking espionage organization got complete control over sensitive databases and could unobtrusively go on siphoning critical information, while the victims were totally unaware of the attack. CYBERTINEL followed the digital traces of the “Harkonnen” cyber attack, and according to the company, it succeeded in tracking down the hackers behind the operation. Having learned about the cyber attack, companies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have contacted the company in recent days to check if they, too, are on the list of victims. Kobi Ben-Naim, co-founder and CEO of CYBERTINEL, said, “Cyber attacks are currently initiated by criminal organizations and hostile states, driven by economic and political motives. They have at their disposal ample resources and are capable of bypassing the conventional cyber defense mechanisms commonly employed in most industries. The new kinds of Trojans do not carry signatures, so they cannot be identified by most cyber defense mechanisms. They disguise themselves effectively within the operating system, and can thus run on the targeted computer and deliver sensitive and confidential data [to the cybercrime network], undisturbed for many years.” __._,_.___ ------------------------------ Posted by: "Beowulf" <[email protected]> ------------------------------ Visit Your Group <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/grendelreport/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmZ2s5bzExBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0MDk4NzMyNzA-> [image: Yahoo! Groups] <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo;_ylc=X3oDMTJlZXFoNXE2BF9TAzk3NDc2NTkwBGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDMTQwOTg3MzI3MA--> • Privacy <https://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/groups/details.html> • Unsubscribe <[email protected]?subject=Unsubscribe> • Terms of Use <https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/> __,_._,___ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
