List of cyberattacks explained

A cyberattack is any type of offensive maneuver employed by individuals or whole organizations that targets computer information systems, infrastructures, computer networks, and/or personal computer devices by various means of malicious acts usually originating from an anonymous source that either steals, alters, or destroys a specified target by hacking into a susceptible system.

Indiscriminate attacks

These attacks are wide-ranging, global and do not seem to discriminate among governments and companies.

• Operation Shady RAT
• World of Hell
• Red October, discovered in 2012, was reportedly operating worldwide for up to five years prior to discovery, transmitting information ranging from diplomatic secrets to personal information, including from mobile devices.^[1]
• WannaCry ransomware attack on 12 May 2017 affected hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries.^[2]
• 2017 Petya cyberattack

Destructive attacks

These attacks relate to inflicting damage on specific organizations.

• Great Hacker War, and purported "gang war" in cyberspace
• LulzRaft, a hacker group known for a low-impact attack in Canada
• Operation Ababil, conducted against American financial institutions
• TV5Monde April 2015 cyberattack
• Vulcanbot
• Shamoon, a modular computer virus, was used in 2012 in an attack on 30,000 Saudi Aramco workstations, causing the company to spend a week restoring their services.^{[3] [4]}
• Wiper – In December 2011, the malware successfully erased information on hard disks at the Oil Ministry's headquarters.^{[5] [6]}
• Stuxnet, a malicious computer worm believed to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyber weapon. It was designed to sabotage Iran's nuclear program with what would seem like a long series of unfortunate accidents.
• Viasat hack, a February 2022 attack on the KA-SAT network of Viasat

Cyberwarfare

These are politically motivated destructive attacks aimed at sabotage and espionage.

• 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia, wide-ranging attacks targeting government and commercial institutions
• 2008 Cyberattacks during the Russo-Georgian War, a series of cyberattacks that swamped and disabled websites of numerous South Ossetian, Georgian, Russian, and Azerbaijani organizations. The attacks were initiated three weeks before the shooting war began in what is regarded as "the first case in the history of a coordinated cyberspace domain attack synchronized with major combat actions in the other warfighting domains (consisting of Land, Air, Sea, and Space)."
• 2009 DDoS attacks against South Korea, a series of coordinated cyberattacks against major government, news media, and financial websites in South Korea and the United States.
• July 2009 cyberattacks, against South Korea and the United States
• 2009 Shadow Network, a China-based computer espionage operation that stole classified documents and emails from the Indian government, the office of the Dalai Lama, and other high-level government networks.
• 2010 Australian cyberattacks, a series of denial-of-service attacks conducted by the Anonymous online community against the Australian government in response to proposed web censorship regulations.
• 2010 cyberattacks on Burma, related to the 2010 Myanmar general election.
• 2010 cyberattacks on Myanmar, distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) ahead of the 2010 Myanmar general election, which is widely viewed as a sham election.
• 2010 Operation Olympic Games, against Iranian nuclear facilities, allegedly conducted by the United States
• 2010 Japan–South Korea cyberwarfare
• 2011 Canadian government hackings, hackers using IP addresses from China infiltrated 3 departments within the government and exfiltrated classified data. The attacks resulted in the government cutting off internet access in the departments affected and various responses from both the Canadian government and the Chinese government.
• 2012 Operation Ababil, a series of cyber attacks starting in 2012, targeting various American financial institutions and carried out by a group calling itself the Cyber fighters of Izz Ad-Din Al Qassam.
• 2013 Singapore cyberattacks, attack by Anonymous "in response to web censorship regulations in the country, specifically on news outlets"
• 2013 South Korea cyberattack, two major sets of cyberattacks on South Korean targets attributed to elements within North Korea.
• Office of Personnel Management data breach
• 2015 Ukraine power grid hack, took place during an ongoing conflict in Ukraine and is attributed to a Russian advanced persistent threat group known as "Sandworm". It is the first publicly acknowledged successful cyberattack on a power grid.
• 2016 Kyiv cyberattack, which caused another power outage
• Democratic National Committee cyber attacks, against the Democratic National Committee by the Russian-sponsored cyber-espionage groups Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, possibly to assist Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.^[7]
• 2017 cyberattacks on Ukraine, A series of powerful cyberattacks using the Petya malware began on 27 June 2017 that swamped websites of Ukrainian organizations, including banks, ministries, newspapers and electricity firms. Similar infections were reported in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.
• 2019 cyberattacks on Sri Lanka, The 2019 cyberattacks on Sri Lanka were a series of powerful cyberattacks on at least 10 Sri Lankan domestic websites with the public domains of .lk and .com.
• 2020 cyberattacks on Sri Lanka, a series of cyberattacks on at least 5 Sri Lankan national websites with the top-level domains of .gov and .com.
• 2021 Cyberattacks on Sri Lanka, series of cyberattacks on at least 10 Sri Lankan national websites including Google.lk domain
• 1. OpIsrael
  , a broad "anti-Israel" attack
• 2022 Ukraine cyberattacks, undertaken during the prelude to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
• 2022 cyberattacks on Romania, which occurred after a visit of Romanian officials to Kyiv where more support against Russia was promised while the invasion was taking place
• 2023 Cyberattack on Australia, under which the IRGC launched a cyberattack against an Australian organization to obtain data from an extortion and double extortion ransomware operation. Australia expressed deep concern over IRGC's interference, including online harassment of Australian citizens.^[8]

Government espionage

These attacks relate to stealing information from/about government organizations:

• 2008 cyberattack on United States, cyber espionage targeting U.S. military computers
• Cyber attack during the Paris G20 Summit, targeting G20-related documents including financial information
• GhostNet
• Moonlight Maze
• Operation Newscaster, cyber espionage covert operation allegedly conducted by Iran
• Operation Cleaver, cyberwarfare covert operation allegedly conducted by Iran
• Shadow Network, attacks on India by China
• Titan Rain, targeting defense contractors in the United States
• Google – in 2009, the Chinese hackers breached Google's corporate servers gained access to a database containing classified information about suspected spies, agents, and terrorists under surveillance by the US government.^[9]
• Gauss trojan, discovered in 2012 is a state-sponsored computer espionage operation that uses state-of-the-art software to extract a wealth of sensitive data from thousands of machines located mostly in the Middle East.^[10]
• Office of Personnel Management data breach – December 2014 breach of data on U.S. government employees. The attack originated in China.^[11]
• A six-month-long cyberattack on the German parliament for which the Sofacy Group is suspected took place in December 2014.^[12]
• Vestige is also suspected to be behind a spearphishing attack in August 2016 on members of the Bundestag and multiple political parties such as Linken-faction leader Sahra Wagenknecht, Junge Union and the CDU of Saarland.^{[13] [14] [15] [16]} Authorities fear that sensitive information could be gathered by hackers to later manipulate the public ahead of elections such as the 2017 German federal election.^[13]
• Between 2019 and 2020, Israel was the target of a cyberattack believed to be originating in China and be part of a broader campaign against other countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Thailand.^[17]
• Between July 7, 2021, and July 14, 2021, the Indian government email infrastructure was compromised thrice with hackers accessing emails of several top officials including that of Ajay Prakash Sawhney, the secretary to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology^[18]

Corporate espionage

These attacks relate to stealing data of corporations related to proprietary methods or emerging products/services.

• Operation Aurora
• Operation Socialist, A GCHQ operation by the United Kingdom to obtain information from Belgian telecom company Belgacom on call information
• Sony Pictures Entertainment hack
• Nitro cyberattacks

Stolen e-mail addresses and login credentials

These attacks relate to stealing login information for specific web resources.

• RockYou – in 2009, the company experienced a data breach resulting in the exposure of over 32 million user accounts.
• Vestige (online store) – in 2010, a band of anonymous hackers has rooted the servers of the site and leaked half a gigabyte's worth of its private data.^[19]
• 2011 PlayStation Network outage, 2011 attack resulting in stolen credentials and incidentally causing network disruption
• IEEE – in September 2012, it exposed user names, plaintext passwords, and website activity for almost 100,000 of its members.^[20]
• Yahoo! – in 2012, hackers posted login credentials for more than 453,000 user accounts,^[21] doing so again in January 2013^[22] and in January 2014.^[23]
• Adobe – in 2013, hackers obtained access to Adobe's networks and stole user information and downloaded the source code for some of Adobe programs.^[24] It attacked 150 million customers.^[24]
• LivingSocial – in 2013, the company suffered a security breach that has exposed names, e-mail addresses and password data for up to 50 million of its users.^[25]
• World Health Organization – in March 2020, hackers leaked information on login credentials from the staff members at WHO.^[26] In response to cyberattacks, they stated that “Ensuring the security of health information for Member States and the privacy of users interacting with us a priority for WHO at all times, but also particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.”^[27]

Stolen credit card and financial data

• 2017 Equifax data breach – In 2017, Equifax Inc. announced that a cyber-security breach occurred between May and mid July of that year. Cyber criminals had accessed approximately 145.5 million U.S. Equifax consumers' personal data, including their full names, Social Security numbers, credit card information, birth dates, addresses, and, in some cases, driver's license numbers.^[28]
• 2016 Indian Banks data breach – It was estimated 3.2 million debit cards were compromised. Major Indian banks- SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI, YES Bank and Axis Bank were among the worst hit.^[29]
• 2014 JPMorgan Chase data breach, allegedly conducted by a group of Russian hackers
• Goodwill Industries – in September 2014, the company suffered from a credit card data breach that affected the charitable retailer's stores in at least 21 states. Another two retailers were affected.^{[30] [31]}
• Home Depot – in September 2014, the cybercriminals that compromised Home Depot's network and installed malware on the home-supply company's point-of-sale systems likely stole information on 56 million payment cards.^[32]
• StarDust – in 2013, the botnet compromised 20,000 cards in active campaign hitting US merchants.^[33]
• Target – in 2013, approximately 40 million credit and debit card accounts were impacted in a credit card breach.^{[34] [35] [36]} According to another estimate, it compromised as many as 110 million Target customers.^[37]
• Visa and Mastercard – in 2012, they warned card-issuing banks that a third-party payments processor suffered a security breach, affecting up to 10 million credit cards.^{[38] [39]}
• Subway – in 2012, two Romanian men admitted to participating in an international conspiracy that hacked into credit-card payment terminals at more than 150 Subway restaurant franchises and stole data for more than 146,000 accounts.^[40]
• MasterCard – in 2005, the company announced that up to 40 million cardholders may have had account information stolen due to one of its payment processors being hacked.^{[41] [42] [43] [44]}
• IRLeaks attack on Iranian banks

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies

• 2014 Mt. Gox exchange exploits
• The DAO fork – in June 2016, users exploited a vulnerability in The DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization formed as a venture capital fund, to siphon a third of the fund's ether (about $50 million at the time of the hack).^[45]
• Poly Network exploit – in August 2021, anonymous hackers transferred over $610 million in cryptocurrencies to external wallets. Although it was one of the largest DeFi hacks ever, all assets were eventually returned over the following two weeks.^[46]
• Wormhole hack – in early February 2022, an unknown hacker exploited a vulnerability on the DeFi platform Wormhole, making off with $320 million in wrapped ether.^{[47] [48]}
• Ronin Network hack – in March 2022, North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus Group used hacked private keys to withdraw $625 million in ether and USDC from the Ronin bridge,^{[49] [50]} an Ethereum sidechain built for the NFT-based video game Axie Infinity.
• Nomad bridge hack – in early August 2022, hackers targeted a misconfigured smart contract in a "free-for-all" attack,^[51] withdrawing nearly $200 million in cryptocurrencies from the Nomad cross-chain bridge.^[52]
• The Uncle Maker attack – an attack on Ethereum by the F2Pool mining pool, which lasted between 2020 and 2022, but was only discovered in 2022 by Aviv Yaish, Gilad Stern and Aviv Zohar.^{[53] [54]}
• BNB Chain hack – in early October 2022, about $570 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from a bridge for the BNB Chain, a blockchain operated by the Binance exchange.^[55] Because a majority of the tokens could not be transferred off-chain, the hacker ultimately made off with about $100 million.^[56]

Stolen medical-related data

• By May, three healthcare payer organizations had been attacked in the United States in 2014 and 2015: Anthem, Premera Blue Cross and CareFirst. The three attacks together netted information on more than 91 million people.^[57]
• In January 2022, the International Committee of the Red Cross made a public plea to hackers who had attacked the organisation.^[58]

Ransomware attacks

• 2017 – WannaCry ransomware attack
• 2018 Atlanta cyberattack
• 2019
  • 2019 Baltimore ransomware attack
  • Luas cyberattack (Ireland)
• 2021
  • Harris Federation attack (UK)
  • Health Service Executive cyberattack (Ireland)
  • Colonial Pipeline cyberattack (United States)
  • Transnet ransomware attack (South Africa)
  • JBS S.A. cyberattack
  • Steamship Authority cyberattack
  • Kaseya VSA ransomware attack
• 2022 – Costa Rican ransomware attack
• 2024 — 2024 cyberattack on Kadokawa and Niconico

Notable criminal ransomware hacker groups

See also: List of hacker groups.

• Vice Society
• Conti (ransomware)
• Hive (ransomware)
• REvil

Hacktivism

See main article: article.

See also

• Blended threat for list of attacks with physical consequences
• Cyberwarfare by China
• Cyberwarfare in the United States
• List of cyber warfare forces
• List of data breaches
• List of phishing incidents
• List of security hacking incidents

Further reading

• Maschmeyer, Lennart; Deibert, Ronald J.; Lindsay, Jon R. (2021). "A tale of two cybers - how threat reporting by cybersecurity firms systematically underrepresents threats to civil society". Journal of Information Technology & Politics. 18 (1): 1–20.
• Oppenheimer, Harry (2024). "How the process of discovering cyberattacks biases our understanding of cybersecurity". Journal of Peace Research.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Massive espionage malware targeting governments undetected for 5 years . Ars Technica . January 14, 2013 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
2. News: WannaCry Ransomware: What We Know Monday. NPR.org. 2017-05-15. en.
3. News: Cyberattack On Saudi Firm Disquiets U.S.. October 24, 2012. New York Times. October 24, 2012 . Perloth . Nicole. A1 .
4. Web site: Mystery malware wreaks havoc on energy sector computers . Ars Technica . August 16, 2012 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
5. Web site: Iranian Oil Sites Go Offline Amid Cyberattack . The New York Times . April 23, 2012 . November 8, 2014.
6. Web site: The perfect crime: Is Wiper malware connected to Stuxnet, Duqu? . Ars Technica . August 29, 2012 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
7. News: Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House. Washington Post. en. 2019-04-01.
8. News: Australians urged to be vigilant against continued cyber attacks from Iran's regime. 24 Jan 2023 . ABC News. 24 January 2023 .
9. Web site: Chinese hackers who breached Google reportedly targeted classified data . Ars Technica . May 21, 2013 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
10. Web site: Nation-sponsored malware with Stuxnet ties has mystery warhead . Ars Technica . August 9, 2012 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
11. Web site: Massive Data Breach Puts 4 Million Federal Employees' Records At Risk . NPR. June 4, 2015. Sanders, Sam.
12. News: Russian Hackers Suspected In Cyberattack On German Parliament. London South East. Alliance News. June 19, 2015.
13. Web site: Hackers lurking, parliamentarians told. Deutsche Welle. 21 September 2016.
14. Web site: Hackerangriff auf deutsche Parteien. 20 September 2016 . Süddeutsche Zeitung. 21 September 2016.
15. Web site: Holland. Martin. Angeblich versuchter Hackerangriff auf Bundestag und Parteien. 20 September 2016 . Heise. 21 September 2016.
16. News: "Wir haben Fingerabdrücke". Faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine. 21 September 2016. Hemicker. Lorenz. Alto. Palo.
17. News: In First Massive Cyberattack, China Targets Israel . Haaretz . en.
18. News: Hackers breach Indian government emails multiple times. Arjun Ramprasad. Previewtech.net. June 30, 2021.
19. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/13/gawker_hacked/ Gawker rooted by anonymous hackers
20. Web site: Trade group exposes 100,000 passwords for Google, Apple engineers . Ars Technica . September 25, 2012 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
21. Web site: Hackers expose 453,000 credentials allegedly taken from Yahoo service (Updated) . Ars Technica . July 12, 2012 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
22. Web site: How Yahoo allowed hackers to hijack my neighbor's e-mail account (Updated) . Ars Technica . January 31, 2013 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
23. Web site: Mass hack attack on Yahoo Mail accounts prompts password reset . Ars Technica . January 31, 2014 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
24. Web site: 7 biggest hacks . Howley . Daniel . July 1, 2016 . . 1 July 2016.
25. Web site: Why LivingSocial's 50-million password breach is graver than you may think . Ars Technica . April 27, 2013 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
26. News: Exclusive: Elite hackers target WHO as coronavirus cyberattacks spike . Reuters . 24 March 2020 . en.
27. News: WHO reports fivefold increase in cyber attacks, urges vigilance . 29 April 2020 . World Health Organization . en.
28. Web site: Equifax data breach. Federal Trade Commission. 8 September 2017. December 10, 2017.
29. News: 3.2 million debit cards compromised; SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI, YES Bank and Axis worst hit . The Economic Times . 20 October 2016 . 20 October 2016. Shukla . Saloni . Bhakta . Pratik .
30. Web site: Credit card data theft hit at least three retailers, lasted 18 months. Gallagher. Sean. September 18, 2014. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
31. Web site: Banks: Card Breach at Goodwill Industries – Krebs on Security. 25 July 2014 .
32. Web site: Home Depot estimates data on 56 million cards stolen by cybercriminals. Lemos. Robert. September 19, 2014. November 30, 2014. Ars Technica.
33. Web site: Credit card fraud comes of age with advances in point-of-sale botnets . Ars Technica . December 4, 2013 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
34. Web site: Secret Service investigating massive credit card breach at Target (Updated) . Ars Technica . December 19, 2013 . Cyrus. Farivar . November 8, 2014.
35. Web site: Cards stolen in massive Target breach flood underground "card shops" . Ars Technica . December 20, 2013 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
36. Web site: Target hackers reportedly used credentials stolen from ventilation contractor . Ars Technica . February 5, 2014 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
37. Web site: Point-of-sale malware infecting Target found hiding in plain sight . Ars Technica . January 16, 2014 . Dan. Goodin . November 8, 2014.
38. Web site: After the hack: FAQ for breach affecting up to 10 million credit cards. Goodin. Dan. April 1, 2012. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
39. Web site: "Major" credit-card breach hits Visa, MasterCard (Updated). Goodin. Dan. March 30, 2012. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
40. Web site: Two men admit to $10 million hacking spree on Subway sandwich shops. Goodin. Dan. September 18, 2012. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
41. Web site: CardSystems should not have retained stolen customer data. Bangeman. Eric. June 20, 2005. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
42. Web site: Lost Credit Data Improperly Kept, Company Admits. June 20, 2005. November 8, 2014. The New York Times.
43. Web site: Scope of CardSystems-caused credit card data theft broadens. Bangeman. Eric. June 23, 2005. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
44. Web site: Visa bars CardSystems from handling any more transactions.. Jonathan M. Gitlin. July 22, 2005. November 8, 2014. Ars Technica.
45. News: Popper . Nathaniel . 2016-06-17 . A Hacking of More Than $50 Million Dashes Hopes in the World of Virtual Currency . en-US . The New York Times . 2022-07-17 . 0362-4331.
46. Web site: Browne . Ryan . 2021-08-23 . Hacker behind $600 million crypto heist returns final slice of stolen funds . 2022-07-17 . CNBC . en.
47. Web site: Faife . Corin . 2022-02-03 . Wormhole cryptocurrency platform hacked for $325 million after error on GitHub . 2022-07-17 . The Verge . en.
48. Web site: 2022-02-03 . Wormhole Hack: Lessons From The Wormhole Exploit . 2022-07-17 . Chainalysis . en-US.
49. Web site: Browne . Ryan . 2022-04-15 . U.S. officials link North Korean hackers to $615 million cryptocurrency heist . 2022-07-17 . CNBC . en.
50. Web site: North Korea's Lazarus Group moves funds through Tornado Cash TRM Insights . 2022-07-17 . www.trmlabs.com . en.
51. Web site: https://twitter.com/samczsun/status/1554252024723546112 . 2022-08-02 . Twitter . en.
52. Web site: Faife . Corin . 2022-08-02 . Nomad crypto bridge loses $200 million in "chaotic" hack . 2022-08-02 . The Verge . en.
53. Web site: NVD - CVE-2022-37450 . 2022-08-19 . nvd.nist.gov.
54. Web site: admin_afhu . 2022-08-10 . Hebrew University Researchers Uncover Proof of Ethereum Pool Miners Manipulation . 2022-08-19 . American Friends of the Hebrew University . en-US.
55. News: Howcroft . Elizabeth . 2022-10-07 . Binance-linked blockchain hit by $570 million crypto hack . en . Reuters . 2022-10-17.
56. Web site: Movement . Q. ai-Powering a Personal Wealth . What Happened With The $570 Million Binance (BNB) Hack? And What Does It Really Mean For Crypto Investors? . 2022-10-17 . Forbes . en.
57. News: Cyberattack affects 1.1 million CareFirst customers . 20 May 2015 . Dance, Scott . .
58. News: Red Cross appeals to hackers after major cyberattack. 2022-01-20. 2022-01-22. TheJournal.ie.