by Jovie Cabais | Aug 7, 2011 | Tech Updates
Experts from the McAffee security company have recently discovered the biggest cyber attack in history. The networks of 72 organisations including the United Nations, governments and companies around the world have been infiltrated by a yet unknown source. However, security experts from McAffee believe that evidence that has been uncovered so far, has pointed to one “state actor” and that is China. But they are yet to do further investigations to conclude their present findings. The infiltration of the systems lasted for a total of five years with some companies, countries and organizations being hacked for a year, while others for just a few months. The long list of victims in the five-year campaign include the governments of the US, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Canada; the Association of South-east Asian Nations ; the International Olympic Committee (IOC); the World Anti-Doping Agency; and an array of companies from defence contractors to high-tech enterprises. McAfee learned of the extent of the hacking campaign in March this year when its researchers discovered logs of the attacks while reviewing the contents of a “command and control” server that they had discovered in 2009 as part of an investigation into security breaches at defence companies. The still unknown hackers gathered pertinent data from the 72 victims, and while the experts still don’t know where these data are going, or what there use will be, the damage of the cyber attack has resulted to massive economic threat. Right now, the countries involved in the cyber attack have pledged to work together to target hackers and to launch a counteroffensive attack to kick them...
