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<b>2016: </b>Major cyber attacks across the globe

From influencing US polls to leaking debit card information, hackers hogged the spotlight in 2016

Hackers, hacking

Hackers, hacking

Surbhi Gloria Singh New Delhi
The year 2016 witnessed a number of cyber attacks, from influencing US elections to leaking debit card and email information, setting off alarm bells across the globe. Here are some major hacks that took place during the year:

1. Dyn Cyber Attack

Internet service company Dyn, which routes and manages internet traffic, suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its domain name service. Major internet services including Twitter, Spotify and Amazon suffered service interruptions and outages in most parts of the US and Europe as Dyn came under a cyber attack.

The attack meant that millions of internet users could not access the websites of major online companies such as Netflix and Reddit as well as the crafts marketplace Etsy and the software developer site Github, according to media reports.
 
2. Hacking group 'Legion'

This group is responsible for hacking high-profile Twitter accounts and still remains out of the dragnet of the police. High-profile accounts, such as those of Rahul Gandhi, Barkha Dutt, Indian National Congress were hacked allegedly by Legion. Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account was hacked on November 30 and was soon flooded with a series of abusive tweets. 

The very next day, Indian National Congress's twitter account was hacked. Legion has claimed to have hacked all Twitter handles, including that of liquor baron Vijay Mallya's. The group had earlier said they would release 1 TB data having sensitive information if any group member was arrested.

The infamous hacker has also targetted journalists like Barkha Dutt and Ravish Kumar.

3. Over a billion Yahoo accounts hacked

On December 14, Yahoo uncovered a massive cyber attack in which more than a billion user accounts were compromised, making it the largest breach in history.

The attack happened orginally in 2013, but was unearthed only this year. The number of affected accounts was twice the number estimated in a 2014 breach that the internet company disclosed in September and blamed on hackers working on behalf of a government. News of that attack, which affected at least 500 million accounts, prompted Verizon Communication Inc to say in October that it might withdraw from an agreement to buy Yahoo's core internet business for $4.83 billion.

Yahoo said it discovered the breach while reviewing data provided to the company by law enforcement.

4. Thre million lakh debits cards compromised

In the biggest-ever security breach affecting the Indian banking sector, 3.2 million debit cards of various public and private sector banks were 'compromised' by a cyber malware attack in some ATM systems in October. These ATMs were operated by Japanese firm Hitachi Payment Services.

Several banks, including state-run SBI had to recall a large number of cards, while many others blocked the ones suspected to have been compromised and asked their customers to change PINs (personal identification number) before use.

Fraudulent withdrawals were reported from 19 banks so far, while complaints were received from few banks that their customers' cards were used fraudulently abroad, mainly in China and USA while customers were in India as per NPCI.

5. The Tescos Bank attack

Tescos Bank after thousands of customers saw hundreds of pounds wiped from their savings accounts over the weekend due to an online hacking attack. Customers affected by the block will still be able to withdraw cash and use other services.

According to a report in Independent hackers broke into Tesco Bank’s computer system and stole £2.5million from the current accounts of 9,000 customers. The bank was compelled to take the drastic measure of temporarily halting all online transactions. This is the largest ever cyber-attack on a UK bank to have resulted in a mass loss of money. One in 15 of the bank’s 136,000 current accounts were affected.

6. Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai

A group by the name of "OurMine" broke into accounts of tech geniuses. Google CEO Sundar Pichai's Quora account was hacked. Accounts of Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of social media giant Facebook, on Twitter and Pinterest were compromised. Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, too, had his account compromised briefly.

7. Bangladesh Banks:

Cyber attacks targeting the global bank transfer system succeeded in stealing funds since February’s heist of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank, according to a SWIFT official.

According to Reuters, 'the messaging network in a Nov 2 letter warned banks of the escalating threat to their systems'. 

The attacks and new hacking tactics underscore the continuing vulnerability of the SWIFT messaging network, which handles trillions of dollars in fund transfers daily.

SWIFT, a Belgium-based co-operative owned by its user banks, had previously disclosed hacks of three SWIFT users since February but said those did not lead to the loss of funds.

8. US Election hack

A secret assessment by CIA has concluded that Russia intervened in the presidential elections to help Trump, The Washington Post had reported.

A senior White House official said on Thursday that Putin was likely to have been aware of the cyber attacks but he fell short of accusing the Russian president. US President Barack Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio that the United States will take action against Russia.

Trump, however, has denied all allegations,

9. Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram airports

According to a report in The Times Of India, Pakistani cyber criminals hacked a server containing a 148 domains of Indian airport websites including Cochin and Trivandrum.The perpetrators have been identified as Kashmiri Cheetah of Pak Cyber Attackers.

India ranks among the top 10 countries, with a large number of cyber crimes, ranging from online harassment to fraud. Hence, its time to refocus on setting strict anti-hacking teams to counter these attacks.

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First Published: Dec 28 2016 | 12:51 PM IST

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