The "January Effect" - An Annual Phenomenon Since 2009

I was recently interviewed for a feature in Discover magazine's Top 100 Stories of 2012 (January 2013 issue - on newsstands now). I'm #62 "Defender of the Digital Domain". During the interview, I was asked about a future forecast for 2013. I mentioned a phenomenon that I've noticed each year since 2009 - a major breach or act of cyber warfare that kicks off the New Year. It may start in December and then get publicized in January, or happen in January and get publicized a bit later but it has happened four years in a row now so I fully expect it to occur once again.

December 2008 - January 2009: Operation Cast Lead (a land war w/ thousands of simultaneous cyber attacks between Israel and Hamas)
December 2009 - January 2010: Google and 20+ companies are breached
January 2011 (approximate) - March 2011: RSA was breached sometime early in 2011 with the announcement being made on March 17, 2011.
January 2012: A hacker announces that he has Symantec's source code for Norton and other products.

What will occur or be announced in December 2012 - January 2013? I have no idea but I'm confident that it'll be something impressive.

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Anonymous Attacks Israeli Air Force Website and Other Targets

English language page of Israeli Air Force Website

A Middle East faction of Anonymous has taken the side of the Palestinian settlers in Gaza and announced that it would be attacking Israeli government websites. One of them belonged to Israel's Air Force according to this tweet:

Screenshot captured on 11/16/2012 0658 PST

Screenshot captured by AnonymousSky and referenced in the above tweet

In less than two days after Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense (the English version of the more obscure Pillar of Cloud designation), civilian supporters on both sides of the conflict have begun launching cyber attacks against key websites (see my original post on this conflict). 88 defacements have been posted to Pastebin today and much more are expected to occur.

UPDATE 16NOV12 0944PST: The following Israeli gov't websites have been attacked by Anonymous per @AnonymousSKY: 

• Israel Security Agency (Shabak.gov.il)
• Ministry of Justice (Justice.gov.il)

@YourAnonNews has reported that cyber attacks from pro-Israel hackers have impacted VoxAnon - an IRC network popular with Anons.

UPDATE 16NOV12 1628PST:

• Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is down (mashav.mfa.gov.il)
• More than 663 Israeli websites defaced 

Related 

The Cyber Warfare Component to Israel's Pillar of Cloud Op

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October Research Priorities for Brazil, China, Iran, Russia, S. Korea, Taiwan

My firm, Taia Global, has launched a new monthly report called S&TI (Science and Technical Intelligence) Flash Traffic Monthly Brief, and today the first issue went out to our subscribers. We use foreign language search and country experts to do a monthly round-up of high priority research and development projects underway in 14 nation states: Brazil, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, India, Iran, Israel, The Netherlands, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Ukraine.

In this inaugural issue, we covered the six states mentioned in the title. Here's a sampling of some of the projects that we reported on:

• EADS plans to co-develop Continuous Detonation Wave Engines at Skolkovo Innovation Center in Moscow
• Iran's new spy drone is an exact replica of Israel's Hermes 450
• Brazil is auctioning off-shore oil leases if foreign companies will open and fund R&D labs in Brazil's technology corridor.
• South Korea plans to produce indigenously-developed surface-to-air guided missiles next year

The October issue is now available for $42.50, or you may contact us for information on on our annual subscription. It's a condensed report, fully sourced, delivered in plain text via your email inbox.

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Cyber Threats Require An Expansion Of The Sensitive Countries List

The website Public Intelligence has released Sandia National Labs and the Department of Energy's Sensitive Countries List. This is a list of 26 countries where approval is required for a visit or an assignment by a DOE employee because the country is known to engage in activities which may be contrary to the interests of the U.S. Of those 26 countries, I've identified 11 who are also developing CNO (Cyber Network Operation capabilities including CNE (Cyber Network Exploitation):

• Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea)
• Peoples Republic of China (including Hong Kong)
• Georgia
• India
• Iran
• Israel
• Kyrgyzstan
• Russian Federation
• Syria
• Republic of China (Taiwan)
• Ukraine

There's actually many more countries with these capabilities that do not appear on the Sensitive Countries list and I hopeful that that will change in the next few years. 

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28 Nation States With Cyber Warfare Capabilities

The 2nd edition of Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping The Cyber Underworld will contain 4 new chapters plus a new Forward by former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and an Afterward by Professor Catherine Lotrionte of Georgetown University. One of those chapters is entitled "Cyber Warfare Capabilities By Nation State". For those of you who can't wait for the 2nd edition to come out, here are the 27 28* States:

1. Australia
2. Brazil
3. Canada
4. Czech Republic
5. Democratic People's Republic of Korea
6. Estonia
7. France
8. Germany
9. India
10. Iran
11. Israel
12. Italy
13. Kenya
14. Myanmar
15. Netherlands
16. Nigeria
17. Pakistan
18. Peoples Republic of China
19. Poland
20. Republic of China (Taiwan)
21. Republic of Korea
22. Russian Federation
23. Singapore
24. South Africa
25. Sweden
26. Turkey
27. United Kingdom
28. United States*

This is not a complete list, but it's a start. We may roll it over into an up-datable website and add the states that we missed for the book (e.g., all of the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, additional states from Africa and South America, etc.)

* UPDATE: (29 Sep 2011) I left the U.S. off the original list because it's covered under one of the other new chapters! Sorry, everyone. :-D

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