Anonymous Targets Italian Anti-cybercrime Authority

By Author: eccuni
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In the recent weeks, law enforcement authorities made several arrests in connection with cyber-attacks on government and private business organizations. The arrests in Turkey, Spain and United Kingdom (U.K) were followed by arrests in United States (U.S), Netherlands and Italy. However, the arrests have not stopped the spate of cyber-intrusions aimed at exposing classified information. An Italian wing of the self-proclaimed cyber vigilante group Anonymous reportedly gained unauthorized access to the server of an Italian cyber police agency. The extracted classified information is associated with National Centre against Cybercrime and Protection of Critical Infrastructure (CNAIPIC). The agency entrusted with the task of safeguarding critical infrastructure facilities coordinates with several intelligence agencies. The latest data breach follows arrest of around 15 suspected attackers by Italian counter crime agencies.

Attackers have reportedly posted some of the data online. The group has claimed access to around 8 Giga bytes of classified data and intends to expose the same in a series of releases. Attackers announced ...
... access to the extracted data on various online accounts of the Anonymous group including an Italian blog site. The exposed data allegedly contains data related to Egyptian, Australian, Russian, U.S, Nepal, Ukrainian, Vietnam and Belarus government agencies and critical infrastructure facilities among others. The attack group has claimed that the counter crime agency has been sitting on the evidence rather than using the collected information in investigations. CNAIPIC has reportedly acknowledged the security breach, but has not confirmed the leakage of classified data.

Exposure of classified data may hinder counter crime operations. Access of such data by cybercriminals, other attack groups, terrorist organizations and rival intelligence agencies may compromise national security. Cyber-attack on critical industrial facilities may have severe economic repercussions. Ironically, organizations involved in counter crime operations and safeguarding critical installations seem to be on the radar of cyber-attack groups. Earlier, Germany's Bonn based National Cyber Defense Center at suffered security breach resulting in exposure of privileged information.

Cyber defense centers and counter crime agencies must streamline their IT infrastructure as people are bound to raise questions on their expertise and security strategies. Governments must equip counter crime and cyber defense centers with adequate number of security experts such as those qualified in masters of security science, computer forensics, and disaster recovery and network administration. These agencies must have latest technological equipment and laboratory facilities to deal with the menace of cybercrime. Professionals involved in counter crime operations and intelligence agencies may self-pace their training needs through security certification programs and online university degree courses.

Effective coordination between law enforcement agencies of different countries is crucial to combat the ever evolving threats in the cyber space. However, authorities must ensure security of information gathered from such collaboration. They must train employees on encryption mechanisms, precautions while sharing information, interaction with external agencies and data security through e-learning, online training and online degree programs. Organizations must encourage IT professionals to participate in IT security conferences, seminars, discussion forums to update themselves on latest happenings in the security industry. Professionals must update themselves on evolving threats, best practices in IT security, latest security and monitoring mechanisms.