Cyber incidents that shook the cyber world in the year 2013

Internet space is expanding continuously and with growth, new threats are also being identified. Time has come when these threats needs to be addressed. A wide range of cyber threats were witnessed in the year 2013. In order to counter these threats, there are for hire groups available that conduct hit and run operations. As hackers are increasingly becoming aggressive, refines strategies need to be adopted for countering threats made by them. Using their intelligence and knowledge, hackers can steal information or money without any trouble. Top 5 cyber incidents that shook the world of internet are as under- Cyber espionage Last year saw a lot of cyber espionage that were designed for stealing information and data from different governmental agencies. Threats were also made on the research institutions. One of the cyber espionage campaigns, Net Traveler affected a large number of people from across 40 countries. Using mobile devices and connecting them to the networks of victims, a lot of information was harvested by cyber criminals. This also shed light on the importance of mobiles for hackers looking to steal information and money. Spear phishing was used by the hackers for gaining a foothold in the targeted organizations. Cyber-mercenaries Cyber mercenaries were also quite active for the past year. A targeted attack on Ice fog was one of the incidents. Since 2011, a campaign against cyber espionage became active. Cyber attackers uses spear phishing emails that contained either links or attachments to web sites that were malicious. This was done for distributing malware to the victims. Emerging trend in the form of Icefog saw attacks by cyber mercenaries groups conducting hit and run attacks. Hacktivism Hackers are also becoming active these days and a lot of money was stolen using this activity. They hacked bank accounts and used confidential information for stealing money. Security breaches are done solely for this purpose. This form of attack is also used as a way of protesting socially and politically. Many times, the major motive of the hackers is to undermine a company’s reputation. DDoS attack is one of the choicest weapons used by hackers. Ransom ware Again, just like denial of service attack which is computer specific, ransomware program is operated. This program runs for blocking access to the file system of a computer or work by encrypting data files that are stored on the computer. Cryptolocker Trojan was one such ransomware program. This program used to hit new victims using a unique key. Mobile malware Approximately 148,427 mobile malwares were detected last year where 98% of them were focused over Android platform. These can be developed quite easily and the major factor that is seen here is cyber criminals exploiting the fact that Google play is used by majority of people downloading apps. This brings malware thereby distorting files and stealing information. These were the top 5 cyber incidents that played havoc in the cyber world.