The biggest and most sophisticated cyber-attack in history was discovered last month by a northern Virginia security firm that appears to have begun in late 2008 and resulted in the hacking of an estimated 75,000 computer systems and nearly 2,500 companies in the United States and around the world.
The Washington Post reports that the cyber-attack targeted mostly proprietary corporate data, e-mails, credit-card transaction data and login credentials at companies in the health and technology industries in 196 countries.
Last month Google was at the center of attention after it was discovered that it had been targeted by hackers originating in China. The latest attack does not appear to be linked with Google, but it nevertheless shows the increasing level of cyber-sophistication developing in the 21st century, and the inability of private industries to effectively combat attacks on this scale.
Amit Yoran, CEO of NetWitness, says that “the traditional security approaches of intrusion-detection systems and anti-virus software are by definition inadequate for these types of sophisticated threats. The things that we — industry — have been doing for the past 20 years are ineffective with attacks like this. That’s the story.”
Among the companies hit were Cardinal Health, located in Dublin, Ohio, and Merck, according to the Wall Street Journal. The countries with the most hits included the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Mexico.
