McAfee researchers say they have uncovered the biggest hacker attack ever, involving 72 governments and organizations around the world, including the U.S., Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, Canada and India — some dating back as far as 2006. Data compromised amounts to several petabytes of information.
The attack uses compromised remote access tools, or RATs, which allow system administrators to access systems from around the world and would allow an attacker to view and download confidential information. Some of those organizations and companies compromised still do not know it.
The attacker was not a hacker group but likely a “state actor” with very high skill levels (China is the “leading candidate”).
According to a blog post from Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee’s VP Threat Research: “I am convinced that every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact.”
Apple has joined Sony and Fox News in the growing list of companies experiencing recent security breaches.
In what appears to be a warning salvo, 27 user names and encrypted passwords from an Apple website were reportedly posted online over the weekend along with a warning of future attacks from hacker group Anonymous.
The hacker group posted a list of data supposedly taken from an Apple Business Intelligence website. Apple has not commented on this.
Anonymous hacker group, which linked to this leak in a Twitter post, threatens that Apple could be a target of its attacks.
Anonymous is running “antisec,” an operation that threatens government, law enforcement and corporations.
Bruce McConnell is a senior cybersecurity official with the Department of Homeland Security.
He recently discussed how companies have a new focus on protecting their communications networks and databases – and what role the government should play in the effort to combat the theft of intellectual property.
Department of Homeland Security helps companies protect themselves.
It is providing defense companies with the same security as military networks.
Legislation is being proposed to require cybersecurity planning for critical-infrastructure companies.
