Ideology drives radical hackers: report

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9134519

[While interesting, these reports always remind me of grade 
school math teacher notes, "Nice job! but since you didn't 
show your work, C+"    - WK]


Tuesday, January 21 2003 
by Matthew Clark

Although digital attackers are motivated by profits and peer pressure 
an increasing number of hackers are driven by ideological values 
claims report.  

In a report released on Tuesday, the UK-based e-security company mi2g 
said that computer attacks on Western organisations are on the rise, 
partly because of radical groups and individuals based in 
predominantly Islamic countries. Retaliatory attacks targeting Islamic 
countries are proportionately low in most instances or negligible, 
mi2g said. 

Citing the potential war in Iraq as well as the War on Terrorism, 
Russia's conflict in Chechnya, the Israel-Palestine issue and 
India-Pakistan tensions over Kashmir, mi2g said that certain 
geo-political issues were motivating "radical hacker groups." 
Anti-capitalist hackers were also named as an active group within the 
politically motivated hacker community. 

According to the company's research, the top ten hotbeds where 
computer attacks originated in 2002 were Brazil, Egypt, Morocco, 
Pakistan, Italy, UK, Indonesia, Turkey, Libya and the USA. Meanwhile, 
the top ten victim countries for 2002 were USA, Brazil, UK, Germany, 
Italy, France, Canada, Denmark, Australia and South Korea. 

With close to 32,500 attacks on US targets mi2g said that American 
organisations suffered from major ideologically motivated attacks 
originating from Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, the UK, Turkey, Libya and 
Morocco. Reduced scale hacker attacks also originated from France, 
Italy and from within the US, the report noted. 

In the UK, where over 5,500 attacks were recorded, foreign attackers 
came mainly from Egypt, Pakistan, Morocco and Turkey. But 
surprisingly, most UK attacks originated from within the UK and US, 
the report said. 

Meanwhile, there were over 800 attacks in India, mostly from Pakistani 
hackers as well as by groups originating from Morocco, Indonesia, 
Libya, Turkey and Egypt. In Israel there were about 380 attacks, 
primarily originating from Libya, Morocco, Egypt, France, Pakistan, 
Indonesia and Italy. "The overall number of attacks on Israeli 
computers declined in 2002 because security was tightened 
progressively," mi2g said. 

"Disgruntled or disaffected individuals -- employees and 
sub-contractors -- have the greatest potential to cause serious damage 
in colluding with third parties," commented DK Matai, chairman and 
chief executive officer of mi2g. "Current events are polarising 
communities along ideological lines. Hacking is a remote crime but it 
does require local presence for serious damage to be caused." 

"As the events in the UK show, digital risk management needs to 
address the threat from within and without simultaneously. Policies 
not designed for the 21st century are failing," Matai continued. " 
Executives need to rethink their strategy." 

Other details in the report showed that overt digital attacks 
worldwide have risen from 4,197 in 1999 to 87,525 in 2002. January 
2003 is set to be a record-breaking month for overt digital attacks. 
Of the 87,525 attacks worldwide recorded by the company in 2002, 
32,689 were on individuals or small businesses and organisations, 
while 46,853 were on firms with turnover of less that USD7 million. 
About 5,767 were on firms with turnover of between USD7 million and 
USD40 million and 2,200 were on larger entities. 
 



-
ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org

To unsubscribe email majordomo () attrition org with 'unsubscribe isn'
in the BODY of the mail.