The post Cyber Toufan al-Aksa Hacker Group Join the Cease Fire appeared first on ICT.
]]>Since first appeared on October 27th, the group has demonstrated superior capabilities compared to other pro-Palestinian linked Hamas hacking groups. Their activities, which focus on breaching servers, databases, and leaking information, strongly suggest, support from a nation-state, with indications pointing towards Iran as the likely supporter.
Their cyber-attacks, labeled as #OpCyberToufan, aim to expose sensitive information from Israeli entities, including both governmental organizations and private companies. Key examples of their cyber-attacks include leaking data from Israel Innovation Authority, Ikea, Radware Cyber Security Company and Max Security & Intelligence. They have also coordinated with other hacker groups under Op-Israel part of an ongoing operation against Israel under the so called collective Anonymous.
Cyber Toufan hacker group has been also engaged in psychological warfare against Israel by releasing videos and media that issue threats in Hebrew. Their primary publications focus on justifying their cyber-attacks on Israel, citing retaliation for what they perceive as Israeli cruelty and crimes.“To all the Zionist companies and organizations affected, those who are aware, and those who are yet to be informed – your turn will come, one by one. Netanyahu has chosen a path of self-destruction. You are merely collateral damage. We will not cease our actions as long as the war persists. The choice is ultimately yours”.
The ongoing conflict in Gaza has caused a surge in cyber-attacks against Israel linked to a variety of threat actors. As such, the cyberspace has evolved into an additional battleground, where hackers, including groups like Cyber Toufan al-Aksa, employ sophisticated tactics hand in hand with propaganda to advance their agendas.
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]]>The post Anonymous Sudan: Pro-Islamic Hacker Group Engages in Cryptocurrency Donation Campaign appeared first on ICT.
]]>Operating since January 2023, Anonymous Sudan has focused on targeting Israel while advancing a pro-Islamic agenda. In the recent month, their primary activity has centered around engaging in Al-Aqsa Flood cyber operations. This includes various cyber-attacks in support and aligned with the objectives of Hamas, against Israel. Moreover, Anonymous Sudan has formalized an alliance with the Russian proxy group known as Killnet.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time of a hacking group solicit donations through cryptocurrency. Groups, such as Linked-Iran Blackshadow, which has initiated similar campaigns, actively seeking contributions via digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Monero in 2021-2022. This trend highlights a broader strategy employed by hacking groups, emphasizing the use of decentralized financial systems to fund their operations.
Donations campaign, represent only one aspect of the larger fundraising activities undertaken by hacker groups. In particular, they are known to engage in criminal activities, including the sale of data leaks online and offering hacking services. Such example is a post published by anonymous Sudan under there new channel DDOS stating: “DDOS Services at a discounted price…do you want to destroy your competitor?…payment via BTC… order an attack”.
In recent years, the landscape of so-called hacktivist groups has witnessed a trend characterized by a dual agenda—political and criminal in nature. Initially, these groups seemingly limit their activities to ‘openly’ engaging in cyber operations driven by political motives, using these actions as a showcase of their technical capabilities. However, as their operations progress, a shift occurs.
It appears that these hacker type of groups transition to a second stage, where they more openly embrace criminal activities with the primary goal of financial gain. This evolution involves offering hacking services, the sale of leaked data on various platforms, and engaging in ransomware operations. Such are the cased of “Anonymous Sudan” and “Stormous” hacker group, which had almost identical progression.
The integration of a criminal agenda alongside political motivations blurs the lines between hacktivism and cybercrime, creating the need for adaptive strategies to address the multifaceted threats posed by these groups.
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]]>The post Cyber Report April-June 2011 appeared first on ICT.
]]>Throughout the period under review (April-June 2021), terror activity continued to permeate through the cyber arena. Jihadist terrorist groups continued their efforts spanning from operational to defensive and offensive actions. Terror groups have also been continuing the trend of using various social media platforms to disseminate propaganda and communicate with their audiences worldwide, often in several languages. This period saw an increase in incitement of physical lone wolf attacks through cyberspace. Throughout April – June 2021, jihadi groups launched several campaigns and continued to disseminate material through various publications, newspapers, and magazines. During this period, Irani and Shia cyber groups made efforts to remain connected with their audiences in the cyber arena by opening new channels and websites. They also carried out various hacks, stealing and publishing personal information of their targets.
In May 2021, tensions escalated between Israel and the Palestinians, culminating in Operation Guardian of the Walls. The cyber arms of terrorist groups and terrorist hacking groups joined in the conflict, spurred by the escalation of violence in tandem with OPIsrael, the annual cyber attack campaign against Israel that occurs every April. During this time, Israel saw a wave of cyber attacks from many various terrorist and hacktivist groups. These attacks are analyzed in a case study in this report.
We are observing a period of time in cyberspace where terror groups are exploiting cyberspace to the best of their abilities, such as for fundraising and propaganda, and are also actively working towards raising their cyber capabilities in order to transform their motivations into tangible attacks. This report analyzes these trends over the period of April – June 2021.
In the period reviewed in this document (April – June 2021) terror activity in cyberspace has been identified in three major aspects:
In the international arena, the global response to cyber threats included activity on the part of governments attempting to quell cyberattacks and remain up to date in their cybersecurity departments by implementing new regulations, policies, sanctions, and roadmaps to improve their cybersecurity. These actions include international cooperation to defend and act against cyber attacks. In May 2021, the United States suffered an attack on a major oil system, Colonial Pipeline. This attack comes following the SolarWinds attack, which acted as a wakeup call to the United States. The Colonial Pipeline attack had tremendous impacts and revamped discourse pertaining to cybersecurity in western countries.
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]]>The post Cyber Report January-March 2021 appeared first on ICT.
]]>Terrorist organizations continue to use the Internet for a wide range of functions, including a continued process of professionalization, and an emphasis on using various social networks as a platform for distributing messages and guidance to various sites.
Additionally, terrorist fundraising through cryptocurrency has become more difficult to trace as we have observed more precautions being taken by the terrorist groups in this regard.
Jihadi organizations continue to use cyberspace to recruit operatives and raise funds, though they have become more cautious in their use of cryptocurrency for fundraising. Since the blockchain is transparent, many terror groups have become more careful about sharing their Bitcoin addresses. They now publicize private contact information and have even begun to shift to cryptocurrencies that are harder to trace, such as Monero.
In the space of global response to cyber threats we see activity on the part of governments attempting to quell cyberattacks and remain up to date in their cybersecurity departments by implementing new regulations, policies, and even sanctions, and by identifying vulnerabilities and brainstorming solutions following a string of attacks such as the SolarWinds attack.
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]]>The post ICT Cyber-Desk Review Report #1 appeared first on ICT.
]]>Cyberspace has become an important battlefield, and an integral part of current and future conflicts. Recent years have seen increasing cyber-attacks on political targets, crucial infrastructure, and the Web sites of commercial corporations. These attacks, which are also, increasingly, receiving international attention, are perpetrated by nation-state actors (which do not take responsibility for them); groups of hackers (such as Anonymous); criminal organizations; and lone hackers. Nation-state actors are becoming ever more aware of the cyber threat, and are assessing its effect on their national security. To this end, many of them are finding (and funding) ways to develop the defense mechanisms to cope with the threat, as well as their own offensive capabilities.
Terrorist organizations are also a part of this dynamic, mutable environment. During the past two years, global jihad groups have also been honing their ability to act in cyberspace. They are extending their activities from “typical” use of the Internet for communication, recruitment of operatives, fundraising, propagandizing, incitement to hatred and violence, intelligence gathering, and psychological warfare, to attacks on the enemy’s critical infrastructure cyber warfare techiniques. Increasingly, terrorist organizations are integrating the information available to them from the virtual world with that available to them in the real world, and using the former to develop offensive capabilities in the latter. This they call “electronic jihad”.
Given these developments, and as part our belief that “sharing information increases our ability to confront terrorism”, the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) of the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya has decided to disseminate a periodic report and analysis of information gathered by our cyber-terrorism desk.
This new publication joins the ICT’s series of publications:
This and forthcoming cyber-desk newsletters will address two main subjects: cyber-terrorism (offensive, defensive, and the media, and the main topics of jihadist discourse); and cyber-crime, whenever and wherever it is linked to jihad (funding, methods of attack).
The following experts comprise our research and writing team:
Dr. Eitan Azani, Deputy Executive Director, ICT
Dr. Tal Pavel, CEO at Middleeasternet, Expert on the Internet in the Middle East
Michael Barak (PhD candidate), Team Research Manager, ICT
Shuki Peleg, Information Security and Cyber-Security Consultant
Ram Levi, Cyber-Security Advisor to the National Council for Research and Development
Hila Oved, Special Project Manager, ICT
We welcome brief articles from scholars and researchers engaged in the study of cyber-terrorism, cyber-crime, and electronic jihad. Interested researchers may submit articles for publication to [email protected]. Articles will be peer reviewed. Those accepted for publication will be published under their author’s name.
Sincerely,
Dr. Eitan Azani
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]]>The post ICT Cyber-Desk Review: Report #2 appeared first on ICT.
]]>The second cyber-desk report addresses two main subjects: cyber-terrorism (offensive, defensive, and the media, and the main topics of jihadist discourse); and cyber-crime, whenever and wherever it has been linked to jihad (funding, methods of attack).
The report discusses the collaboration between the “Anonymous” group and Jihadist hackers in Electronic Jihad. The report highlights a chat software program specifically for Jihadists, as well as a number of security breaches by the “Al-Fallage Team”. Key topics of Jihadist discourse and Jihadist propaganda are listed and include addresses by prominent Al-Qaeda leaders and the formation of new media outlets.
During the course of January 2013, several events were detected in the world of cyber-crime and cyber-threats to the world economy, banking and business. These attacks included data leaks from FBI servers, online attacks of malware, hacking the website of the Chamber of Commerce in France, and the threat of cell phone hacking. In Britain, Christopher Weatherhead and Ashley Rhodes were arrested for the execution of a series of online attacks.
This report’s case study focuses on Iran’s suspected involvement in the attacks on American banks. Also spotlighted in this report are the “Anonymous” group and their activities in the Middle East and against Israel.
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]]>The post ICT Cyber-Desk Review: Report #3 appeared first on ICT.
]]>This report covers two main subjets: cyber-terrorism (offensive, defensive, and the media, and the main topics of jihadist discourse); and cyber-crime, whenever and wherever it is linked to jihad (funding, methods of attack). The following are among the issues covered in this report:
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]]>The post ICT Cyber-Desk Review: Report #4 appeared first on ICT.
]]>This report covers two main subjets: cyber-terrorism (offensive, defensive, and the media, and the main topics of jihadist discourse); and cyber-crime, whenever and wherever it is linked to jihad (funding, methods of attack). The following are among the issues covered in this report:
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]]>The post ICT Cyber-Desk Review: Report #5 appeared first on ICT.
]]>This report covers two main subjets: cyber-terrorism (offensive, defensive, and the media, and the main topics of jihadist discourse); and cyber-crime, whenever and wherever it is linked to jihad (funding, methods of attack). The following are among the issues covered in this report:
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]]>The post ICT Cyber-Desk Review: Report #6 appeared first on ICT.
]]>This report covers two main subjets: cyber-terrorism (offensive, defensive, and the media, and the main topics of jihadist discourse); and cyber-crime, whenever and wherever it is linked to jihad (funding, methods of attack). The following are among the issues covered in this report:
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