Cyber Playing a Role in Civil War in Iraq

Theregister.co.uk reported on 1st July, 2014 stating an observation by a researcher that civil war in Iraq has spilled on the Internet which has spotted a huge increase in tools of cyber-espionage and other types of malware.

Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) gang members have used social media extensively to spread propaganda easily as a complement to their own advances towards northern Iraq, leading to limits on social media (now relaxed...partially) and blocks on various sites by ISPs in Iraq.

Accompanying massive surge in malware activity in the strife-torn nation has remained largely unreported.

Theregister.co.uk published news on 1st July, 2014 reporting Cyber Intelligence Outfit IntelCrawler as "many new-flanged botnets employing dynamics DNS have been identified which may have been employed for cyber-espionage and beleaguered multi-staged cyber attacks."

Maximum wicked activity has been listed in Baghdad with over 50%required follow distantly by Mosul, Erbil and Basra.

Softpedia.com published news on 1st July, 2014 stating that regarding threats used for malicious purposes, security firm observes many Remote Administration Toolkits (RATS) "using Secure Sockets (SOCKS) and FTP/HTTP BackConnect with embedded file system browser for tainted suffers remote monitoring covered under GM (Google Chrome) and software that is obtainable publicly."

The security firm says that it seems Microsoft's seizure of 23 No-IP domain names recently has contributed to reduction of malevolent activity in the area as the online attacks were carried out using NJrat which is a part of family of Bladabindi malware.

Researchers say that most of the malwares appear to be custom and not off-the-shelf mass malicious software and were found in assaults targeting Syrian opposition gangs in civil war in Syria. The security firm added that ISIS also played a chief role in Syria and hence using its cyber capabilities again in Iraq.

Securityweek.com published a report on 1st July, 2014 quoting IntelCrawler as saying that the share of activity of Iraqi based cybercriminals involved in many illegal activities as mercenaries have increased significantly and they seem to have ties with other groups in Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Iran and Syria."

» SPAMfighter News - 7/10/2014