Cyber attack
A cyber attack or a cyber attack is the targeted attack on larger, for a specific infrastructure important computer networks from the outside for sabotage, information gathering and blackmail. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has set up an information portal to prevent cyber attacks .
Known cyber attacks
- Operation Shady RAT (English; for example "dodgy rat" or "hidden remote access") are hacker attacks in which at least 72 companies, organizations and governments worldwide were systematically spied between 2006 and 2011.
- Internet attacks on Estonia began on April 27, 2007, targeting Estonian organizations including the Estonian Parliament, banks, ministries and broadcasters. The attacks were mainly denial-of-service attacks using the botnet and paralyzed the entire country. Estonia is considered to be the most internet-savvy country in Europe. On March 20, 2009, Konstantin Goloskokow, a functionary of the government-affiliated Russian youth organization Nashi , declared himself to be the mastermind behind the attacks. However, the truth of this statement is disputed.
- In November 2009, in a hacking incident at the University of East Anglia's climate research center , also known as Climategate in the media , documents from researchers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia (United Kingdom) were stolen by hackers and posted on the Internet. The incident and the resulting allegations of scientific dishonesty against the climate researchers concerned attracted attention in blogs in the run-up to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen and were mentioned in international media. The documents - over 1,073 emails and 3,485 other files - were from 1996 to 2009 and were genuine , according to Philip D. Jones , director of the CRU.
- In 2011, the German hacktivist group No-Name-Crew (also: n0n4m3 cr3w) broke into the IT systems of the Federal Police (Germany) and customs. The German group claimed that they had overheard all communications between the two authorities months earlier. On July 7th, 2011 at around 11:40 pm, software packages and associated application notes as well as operational data from the target tracking system “Paip-Tracking-Server” ( Patras ) appeared on the website of the “no-name crew” . From the area of the customs investigation service, anonymous GPS tracking data, the dialing numbers of the tracking transmitters used, directory names and the names of the responsible departments could be viewed. It became known that, among other things, an officer was using the system to monitor his daughter.
- On March 20, 2013, there was a cyber attack against South Korean banks and television stations . At the same time at around 2:00 p.m. (6:00 a.m. CET) there was massive network disruption. The South Korean Ministry of Defense in Seoul raised the alert level for cyber threats to three on a five-point scale.
- At the end of 2014, IT specialists assigned to the Russian Federation broke into the computer of the Swiss defense company RUAG and obtained, among other things, data on secret projects of the Defense Department , including information on AAD 10 .
- In the same year, data from 500 million users was stolen from Yahoo! In this context, the US Department of Justice brought charges against two employees of the Russian secret service FSB in March 2017 .
- In June 2015 there was a comprehensive cyber attack on the German Bundestag .
- In December 2015, there was a hacker attack on the Ukrainian electricity supply , which led to blackouts in western Ukraine lasting several hours. Russia was blamed for the attacks.
- In 2016, criminals tried several times to break into the data traffic of the global payment system SWIFT . In a successful attempt in February 2016, they stole at least $ 81 million from the central bank of Bangladesh .
- A cyber attack on a DSL router on November 27, 2016 led to the failure of around one million DSL devices , mainly affecting Deutsche Telekom customers .
- In May 2017 there was a global cyber attack by the malware program WannaCry , which exploited a security hole in Windows.
- In February / March 2018, a far-reaching attack on the Berlin-Bonn information network became known. With the cyber attack, spies specifically attempted to get hold of documents from the Foreign Ministry.
- In July 2018, information about the theft of health data of 1.5 million people in Singapore from the Integrated Health Information System (IHiS) database between May 2015 and July 2018 was reported by strangers , including information on prescribed medication, including information from the Prime Minister, for around 160,000 patients Lee Hsien Loong .
- In September and October 2018, the airlines British Airways and Cathay Pacific had to admit data leaks. According to British Airways, 380,000 bank and credit card details were stolen from bookings made on August 21 and September 5, 2018. Cathay Pacific announced a data breach in late October affecting data from 9.4 million customers. According to the company, personal data as well as email addresses, credit card information, ID card and passport numbers were stolen. The cyber attack had already taken place between March and May 2018 and apparently continued afterwards.
- The US hotel group Marriott International announced on November 30, 2018 the theft of around 327 million customer data via the IT group subsidiary Starwood, including payment information. Affected are customers of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide with the brands W Hotels, St. Regis Hotel , Sheraton Hotels & Resorts , Westin Hotels & Resorts , Element Hotels, Aloft Hotels, The Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts , Four Points by Sheraton and Design Hotels. The cyber attack was discovered on September 8, 2018.
- On May 7, 2019, there was a cyber attack on computer systems in the city of Baltimore (Maryland, USA). The hackers used a variant of the blackmail software ( ransomware ) RobinHood. This infected the computer systems of the city administration. Most systems failed or had to be shut down for security reasons.
- At the beginning of January 2020, the IT systems of the Austrian Foreign Ministry were the target of a "serious" cyber attack. The Ministry suspected an attack by a “state actor”.
- In the night from September 10 to 11, 2020, unknown hackers attacked the University Clinic in Düsseldorf . They used the DoppelPaymer malware and exploited a loophole in the Citrix VPN software. Clinic operations then largely came to a standstill. The hackers probably intended to attack the University of Düsseldorf to which the extortion letter was addressed. The police informed the hackers of their mistake and told them that human lives were in danger. They then sent a digital key to decrypt the data. The clinic was gradually able to resume operations.
- On December 9, 2020, it became known that unknown hackers had succeeded in breaking into the IT system of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Amsterdam and stealing documents about the corona vaccine from the Mainz company Biontech and the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer .
- Solarwinds Hack 2020 , a widespread hacking attack on the United States that went unnoticed for months . Affected are among others. numerous US departments, including the Department of Homeland Security and parts of the Pentagon , public institutions and large companies, including the Microsoft group . The break-in into highly sensitive data networks apparently took place for the purpose of obtaining information and caused damage of previously unknown proportions.
- On March 24, 2021, a “so-called all-round strike” apparently took place in Switzerland , mainly on municipalities. In Bad Zurzach "all departments of the municipal administration [...] were brought to a standstill." The administration was "unavailable electronically for several days. The telephone lines remained silent. ”Personal data [of the citizens] had not been stolen, but“ certain data had to be played back. ”The perpetrators demanded“ an unspecified amount of bitcoins . ”Community clerk Daniel Baumgartner:“ It is still unclear how the damage caused to the municipality of Bad Zurzach comes to a standstill. [...] But it was above all the loss of work of our employees that has had a significant impact in the last few days.
- At the end of April 2021, the food retailer Tegut suffered from a cyber attack, which caused empty shelves due to the failure of the merchandise management system . As a result, the hackers published company data on the Darknet .
- On May 7, 2021, an attack on the IT of the operator of the important US pipeline network Colonial Pipeline began . Colonial is the largest pipeline operator in the United States. In terms of transported volume, the Colonial Pipeline is the largest pipeline in the United States. The network carries nearly half of the fuel supplies on the east coast of the United States. The main line runs from Houston, Texas to Linden, New Jersey . The airport in Atlanta is also supplied . Due to the attack, the transport was partially suspended. It is still unclear which malware was used and who was behind the attack. The US government declared a regional emergency so that the fuel can be transported to its destination by road. On May 7, 2021, the pipeline operator paid US $ 4.4 million to the unknown group of hackers who used ransomware . Company representatives described the decision on this as "highly controversial". According to the company, the pipeline was back to normal on May 15, 2021.
- On May 14, 2021 was public health service in Ireland ( Health Service Executive ) under attack. The HSE shut down all IT systems.
- From the end of May 2021, JBS , the world's largest meat producer, fell victim to a cyber attack. As a result, JBS had to cease operations in Australia.
See also
Web links
Wiktionary: Cyberattacke - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
- Technical Report about the Espionage Case at RUAG , official whitepaper of the Swiss Confederation, GovCERT
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alexander Unverzagt, Claudia Gips: Handbuch PR Law, Springer-Verlag, 2018, p. 356 [1]
- ↑ BSI: Cybersecurity
- ↑ The polemically used term Climategate uses the suffix -gate (cf. Nipplegate , Zippergate ) , which has been used in scandals in the English-speaking world since the Watergate affair .
- ↑ Björn Staschen: Tagesschau online: Researcher emails hacked - data theft makes climate skeptics cheer. December 4, 2009, archived from the original on July 11, 2010 ; Retrieved November 12, 2012 .
- ↑ Climate Gate feeds skepticism about climate change . Deutschlandfunk , December 4, 2009.
- ^ Stefan Bühler, Andreas Schmid: Russian hackers expose secret Swiss elite troops. NZZ of May 8, 2016
- ↑ Russia denies hacker activities , Deutschlandfunk, March 16, 2017
- ↑ Hackers attack the Swift global payment system. Standard.at from May 13, 2016
- ↑ zeit.de: Great damage for $ 31,000
- ↑ Cyber attack on the Federal Foreign Office. Retrieved March 3, 2018 .
- ↑ SingHealth's IT system Target of Cyber Attack. (No longer available online.) In: moh.gov.sg. July 20, 2018, archived from the original on July 20, 2018 ; accessed on July 22, 2018 .
- ↑ BA chief pledges to compensate customers after data breach. In: The Guardian. September 7, 2018, accessed December 10, 2018 .
- ↑ Cathay Pacific hit by data leak affecting up to 9.4m passengers. In: The Guardian. October 24, 2018, accessed December 10, 2018 .
- ↑ Cathay Pacific cyberattack far worse than thought after airline admits facing intense hack for more than three months. In: South China Morning Post. November 12, 2018, accessed December 10, 2018 .
- ↑ Marriott: Data from 500 million hotel guests tapped. In: heise.de . November 30, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Cyber attack on State Department. In: orf.at . January 5, 2020, accessed January 5, 2020 .
- ↑ Olivia von Westernhagen: University Hospital Düsseldorf: Ransomware "DoppelPaymer" is said to be behind the attack. In: heise online. Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG, September 22, 2020, accessed on December 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Hackers steal vaccine data in a cyber attack on the European Medicines Agency. In: aerzteblatt.de. Deutscher Ärzteverlag GmbH, December 10, 2020, accessed on December 14, 2020 .
- ↑ Andreas Rüsch: Hacker attack on the USA: security authorities accuse Russia. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , January 6, 2021, accessed on January 15, 2021.
- ^ Daniel Weissenbrunner: Hacker attack on Bad Zurzach , Südkurier , March 27, 2021.
- ↑ Volker Nies: Fulda: Tegut badly hit by a hacker attack - empty shelves. Fuldaer Zeitung, May 10, 2021, accessed on May 10, 2021 .
- ↑ Fulda: Cyber attack on Tegut - perpetrators put data into the Darknet. Osthessen News, May 19, 2021, accessed on May 19, 2021 .
- ↑ tagesschau.de: Large US pipeline shut down after hacker attack. Retrieved May 9, 2021 .
- ↑ tagesschau.de: Hacker attack on pipeline: USA declares regional emergency. Retrieved May 10, 2021 .
- ↑ Cathay Pacific cyberattack far worse than thought after airline admits facing intense hack for more than three months. In: South China Morning Post. November 12, 2018, accessed December 10, 2018 .
- ↑ Colonial Pipeline boss confirms $ 4.4m ransom payment. BBC News, May 19, 2021, accessed May 20, 2021 .
- ↑ Colonial Pipeline says operations back to normal following ransomware attack. The Verge, May 15, 2021, accessed May 20, 2021 .
- ↑ data security de Information on data security and data protection: Significant ransomware attack on IT systems of the Health Service Executive. Retrieved May 16, 2021 .
- ↑ New cyber attack against multi-hackers attacking the world's largest meat company. Tages-Anzeiger , June 1, 2021, accessed June 1, 2021 .