Turkish Hackers Target Australian Government Websites

During the past couple of years (2005-2006), hackers have considerably escalated targeted attack towards the Australian State Government websites, as per the security purveyor TippingPoint.

The strikes were by and large just superficial violations, but these intrusions were frequently a forerunner to more perilous invasion of networks, as said by Ken Low, APAC Director, security marketing, TippingPoint that carried out the study.

Addressing its yearly security conference in Sydney, Ken Low alleged that during October 2005-May 2007, strikes on qld.gov.au sites have intensified from 23 to 47 attacks, leading to a 104% growth, as reported in the May 25, 2007 edition of SC MAGAZINE.

Breaches on sa.gov.au sites have also increased, climbing from 19 to 28, translating into a growth of 47%, while attacks on the hostname nsw.gov.au climbed up by just 12%, from 85 to 95 attacks.

The survey reported that out of the top ten cyber-terrorists liable for invasions on Australian websites, the majority seemed to be from Turkey. A cyber-terrorist with pseudo name Iskorpitx, with a record of 841 strikes, was the most successful hacker during the period of eight years .

Government sites are attacked no less than a couple of times each month, stated Low. Only a month back (April 2007), an unidentified government website was breached. The cyber-terrorist was able to evade the security and avoid filters to perpetrate an attack that caused the breakdown of the site.

During May 22, 2007 - May 24, 2007, teams named TurkHacks.com, 1923Turk and uLTRaTurK took credit for incursions on several Australian websites. Australia ranked third among top ten nations in terms of the proportion of cyber invasions to market volume, said the report.

Low said that previously, it was difficult to get cyber-terrorists in Australia who had surpassed the 100 mark - meaning perpetrated 100 incursions - but presently, there are nearly 30 cyber-terrorists in Australia that have over 100 attacks in their accounts."

Australian sites had a greater strike rate than its seven neighboring Asian nations, comprising Singapore, China, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Related article: Turkish Hackers Target Kiwi Websites

» SPAMfighter News - 6/5/2007