The 15 Worst Cyber Attacks in the History of Mankind
As computer hardware improved, the intensity of cyber attacks increased. Cyber attacks will always be a problem that big companies will have to deal with. To understand what chaos and destruction was caused by cyber attacks, we have compiled a list of the 15 worst attacks in the history of mankind.
Flamer or Skywiper
This was a very annoying malware which was discovered somewhere in 2012. Hackers used it as a virus and could spy on the user’s activities. The malware could record audio, even Skype calls, and monitor keyboard activities. It hit Middle Eastern countries that use the Windows operating system.
The 2009 July Cyber attacks
South Korea and the United States were affected by this vicious cyber attack that targeted government and news websites. The attacks overloaded their servers using a DDoS attack method.
Attack on Canada’s government
The Canadian government was attacked in 2011 by hackers most probably from China. The purpose of the attack was to gain classified government information.
Attack on PayPal
PayPal was attacked in 2010 by hackers. It took place right after PayPal restricted the WikiLeaks fund raising account.
Project Chanology
This was a movement against the Church of Scientology. It was a protest by an anonymous group over internet censorship.
4chan
4chan caused a lot of problems in the internet world, as people could post anonymously. Users of 4chan were able to hack and access private information through the anonymous post data.
Cyber attacks on India
In 2012, a group of hackers managed to hack into more than 12,000 email accounts. This included official email accounts of people from Defense Research and Development Organization (DRAO) and Ministry of Home Affairs.
Stuxnet
This was a cyber worm that attacked the Iranian Government and is believed to be a joint effort of the US and Israel. The worm is responsible for destroying about 1000 nuclear centrifuges in Tehran.
Opi Israel
It was a DDoS assault, organized by anti-Israel groups. Its’ purpose was to take Israel out of the internet for good.
Operation Aurora
It was a cyber attack conducted by Elderwood Group from Beijing. The targets were Yahoo, Google, Juniper Networks, Adobe Systems and RackSpace.
The Spamhaus Project
The cyber attack was organized to disrupt the services provided by Spamhaus. Spamhaus is an email filter which blocks spam mail. It is considered as one of the biggest cyber attacks in history.
The Estonian Cyberware
Estonia was attacked by cyber terrorists in 2007 by a group called Nashi. Botnets and ping floods were used in this attack which completely destroyed many government websites.
PlayStation network
Approximately 77 million PlayStation accounts were hacked in 2011, which resulted in a $2 billion loss. The effect of the attack lasted for about 24 days.
Titan Rain
Titan Rain was discovered in 2004 by Shawn Carpenter. The series of cyber attacks was conducted by hackers who accessed classified government files. Redstone Arsenal, NASA, Sandia National Laboratories and Lookhead Martin where effected by this attack.
Logic Bomb
This cyber attack was conducted by the CIA in 1982 during the cold war. A Siberian Gas Pipeline was made to explode when hackers manipulated the pipelines computer code.
