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We would like to share some of the technology related news which impact mainly UN and India according to the news sources, but the entire IT world would be affected by the same somehow. One of the famous Antivirus and Security company McAfee during its processes to track, determine and cop against security threats, found the biggest ever cyber attack till date being run.
It includes the infiltration of the networks of around 72 organizations including U.N. (United Nations), Several government sectors (of various countries) and companies. In the official statement, McAfee, who uncovered the intrusions said that it believed there was one “state actor” behind the attacks, though the company was not ready to reveal the name of the same. However people around believes that the state actor is China. It was a well designed, well-planned, well thought of and smartly running campaign, which was running since almost 5 years; targeting governments of United States, Canada, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam amongst others. The organizations like IOS (International Olympic Committee), the World Anti-Dopping Agency, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) are amongst the array of the companies/organizations targeted. The targeted companies are from High-Tech companies to the defence contractors and more.
It might be shocking that the hackers found a way to enter the UN Secretariat (Geneva) and was working in stealth mode for almost a couple of years without being discovered. Definitely during the period they have played a lot with data apart from stealing the same. Of course it will be an open question with a bunch of answers that “What happened with the data stolen”, probably we could not ever know what exactly done with that but still you can think about some of the possible events.
According to McAfee, some of the attacks last for smaller period while some others run of a long time, Eg. the attack on the Olympic committee of an unidentified (or unrevealed?!) Asian nation went on and of for more than two years period. This is really freighting and according the security company, it is the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history. Also, apart from the Operation Shady RAT (Remote Access Tool – which let others work with the system from a remote location as physically sitting in front of the same), for which the traces lead to somewhere in mid of 2006; there might be various attacks which are still undetected.
Seems apart from being cautious about the security, one must needs to be armed with the security tool, and had to always avoid installing the applications which belongs to un-trusted source. And of course avoid being part of the network when not needed explicitly. Because ultimately its your loss when you are not secured enough. According to us, avoiding some of the serious security stuffs, by overlooking some of the alarming incidents by taking them lightly, is one of the reasons, the attack lasted long, undiscovered; so be sure to not to overlook any alarming sitution. And prevention is better than cure, the famous saying is the ultimate truth.
Information Curtsey: Various News Sources including McAfee.
Recently a hacker (or hackers!) was able to gain access to Nokia developer forums database. He (or she?) was able access email addresses and other details for the forum users. After the forum was defaced, Nokia took precautions and temporary shutdown its developer forum website. It is believed that the SQL injection techniques is used for the attack.
Nokia gone a step ahead to inform all the developers associated about the incident. The company also informed them that the accessed data doesn’t contain Credit Card information or password fortunately. Right now further security investigations are going on at Nokia lab.