Biggest Cyber Attacks In History

It’s weird, but hackers are usually admired. I don’t know why, but I like these reckless guys too, although they often do pretty nasty things, like stealing money from credit cards. I have never been a victim of cyberpunks, so, I find them damn smart. Besides, they often act as Robin Hoods, i.e. take money from the rich and give it to the poor. Anyway, it’s interesting to watch how ordinary people (well, in fact they are far from being ordinary) make the government shake with fear. Away with boring stuff! Here’s the list of the biggest cyber attacks in history (of course, I am talking about those attacks we know about).

Titan Rain
The US Military Intel was the target of the attack initiated in China. The attack was discovered by Shawn Carpenter from Sandia National Laboratories in 2004 (yes, the Internet existed at that time). FBI named the attack Titan Rain. A few sensitive computer networks were hacked, including those belonging to the US Military and NASA. Not only IT systems were broken, but computers were infected with malware that made it possible to assault databases in future. Can you believe it! This is a true espionage story on an international level! Amazing! The attack was localized, but the FBI guys were scared as hell. Some people claim this is the biggest cyber attack in the modern history. P.S. The guy who discovered the attack was eventually fired.

Moonlight Maze

Russia vs the US. The cold war continues. From 1998, during 2 years, NASA, Pentagon and the Department of Energy were reporting data leakage from their information systems. Even some universities claimed they noticed intrusion to their databases. Russia still denies its involvement (c’mon, we know that’s you!).

Presidential Espionage

Even presidents can become victims of cyberpunks. Obama and McCain suspected one another of espionage. However, it was a problem that turned out to be much bigger than everyone could think. FBI found international traces and confiscated computers and all electronic devices used in the campaign in both camps. Russia or China were the main suspects but nobody claimed the responsibility for these attacks.

750,000 American zombies

A Chinese hacker group, supposedly supported by the government, assaulted US computer networks at all possible levels. The goal of the attack was to infect PCs with malware that can be activated later. As a result, there were 750,000 zombified computers that could be used in DDoS attacks. Hackers used email with some attractive offers compelling users to open up emails.

Worldwide Web Slowdown

Can you think of a cyber attack that can slow down the entire World Wide Web? It is the most recent attack, reported in March 2013 and initiated by a non-profit group Spamhaus. This is the biggest DDoS attack in history – 300 billion bits per second (300Gbps) at Spamhaus servers! Can you believe it? I can’t! But it’s a fact! The attack caused slowdown of many sites and streaming video services.

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