Israel builds Cybernetic taskforce to defend against cyberwar

A day after Iran announced the establishment of a Cyber Command, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday announced the establishment of a national cybernetic taskforce to encourage and develop the field of cybernetics and turn the State of Israel into a global center of knowledge, in cooperation with academia, industry, the security establishment and other public bodies.

The national cybernetic taskforce is being established in accordance with the recommendations of a special team from the Higher Committee for Science and Technology, which was appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and is chaired by National Research and Development Council Director Prof. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael.

The main responsibility of the taskforce will be to expand the state’s ability to defend vital infrastructure networks against cybernetic terrorist attacks perpetrated by foreign countries and terrorist elements.

The taskforce is being established following several such attacks that have taken place around the world in recent years, including those which disrupted the electricity grid in Brazil, banks in Estonia and elections in Myanmar.

Israeli electronic networks are also under constant threat.  For example, the Bank of Israel’s website was shut down in 2008.  This past June, after the Turkish flotilla, hackers attacked many Israeli Internet sites, including that of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed the allocation of a special budget to implement the five-year plan that will place Israel at the global forefront in this field.  The plan includes investments in academic research and development, the establishment of a super computer-based center at an Israeli university, the establishment of academic centers of excellence, accelerated activity to bring researchers and academics back to Israel, significantly increasing the number of cybernetics students and upgrading university research infrastructures.

The plan will also encourage the business sector, especially high-tech, in order to develop blue-and-white technologies that will give Israel a significant advantage in the field.  The Government will remove export impediments on cybernetic developments and the security establishment will increase assistance for the development of cybernetic technologies by private industries.

North Korean hackers shut down South Korean bank via DDoS attack

North Korea was responsible for paralyzing the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation’s computer network in April in a second online attack in two months linked to the Kim Jong II regime, South Korean prosecutors said.

According to a Bloomberg report, “Hackers used similar techniques employed in cyber assaults that targeted websites in South Korea and the U.S. earlier this year and in 2009, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said in an e-mailed statement today.”

The network of the bank better known in Korean as Nonghyup, was shut down on April 12, keeping its almost 20 million clients from using automated teller machines and online banking services. In all of the three bouts of online attacks, a method called “distributed denial service” was used, according to the statement.

Under the DDoS tactic, malicious codes infect computers to trigger mass attacks against targeted websites, according to Ahnlab Inc. (053800), South Korea’s largest maker of antivirus software.

Nonghyup will spend 510 billion won ($477.2 million) by 2015 to boost network security, the bank said in an e-mailed statement. The company received 1,385 claims for compensations related to the network disruption as of May 2, and 1,361 of them have been settled, according to the statement.

North Korea’s postal ministry was responsible for the 2009 attacks, Won Sei Hoon, head of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers in October 2009.

Attacks in March this year targeted 40 South Korean websites, including at the presidential office, the National Intelligence Service, and Ministry of National Defense. They were traced to the same Internet Protocol addresses used in the 2009 episodes, South Korean police said last month.

The hackers prepared for the April 12 attack on Nonghyup for more than seven months, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said today.

Another 25 million users’ data stolen in the second Sony hack

Sony has disclosed that hackers stole the names, addresses and passwords of nearly 25 million more users than previously known less than a day after the Japanese company apologized for one of the worst break-ins in Internet history.

On Sunday, Sony apologized to its users for the incident that was initially thought to have impacted close to 77 million Sony PlayStation users. Sony also announced a compensation package for the users with multiple freebies for its users. According to Reuters, the Japanese electronics company said it discovered the break-in of its Sony Online Entertainment PC games network also led to the theft of 10,700 direct debit records from customers in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers.

Sony said late Monday that the names, addresses, emails, birth dates phone numbers and other information from 24.6 million PC games customers was stolen from its servers as well as an “outdated database” from 2007. However, Sony denied on its official PlayStation blog on Monday that hackers had tried to sell it a list of millions of credit card numbers.

The April incident has sparked legal action and investigations by authorities in North America and Europe, home to almost 90 percent of the users of the network, which enables gamers to download software and compete with other members.

On Monday, Sony declined to testify in person in front of a U.S. congressional hearing, but agreed to respond to questions on how consumer private data is protected by businesses in a letter on Tuesday, said a spokesman for Rep. Mary Bono Mack, a Republican Congresswoman from California, who is leading the hearing.

The incident that Sony disclosed on Monday also forced it to suspend its Sony Online Entertainment games on Facebook. Sony posted a message on Facebook saying it had to take down the games during the night. A Sony spokesman said the Facebook games make money from microtransactions and the sale of virtual goods like costumes and weapons.

It was not immediately clear if the data theft included data from players of Sony games including “PoxNora,” “Dungeon Overlord,” “Wildlife Refuge” on Facebook.