Iran accused of attempted cyber-attack on Google, Yahoo, Skype

Internet security company Comodo Group says a recent round of failed attacks on major websites of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Mozilla and Skype were most likely the work of the Iranian government.

The government of Iran has been accused of sponsoring an attempted cyber-attack on Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Skype, reports Time. If not discovered, the attacks could have left these major websites open to impersonation.

The claim comes from New Jersey-based company Comodo Group, which sells digital authentication certificates that guarantee a website is legitimate through the use of a protocol called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Comodo says it sold nine such certificates to websites that it later discovered were fake. The certificate were subsequently revoked.

According to its incident report, Comodo determined that the IP addresses used to purchase the SSL certificates were “mainly from Iran.” But because the would-be hackers targeted sites used for communication, like Gmail and Skype, rather than targeting financial information as a “typical” cyber-criminal might, Comodo deduced that the failed attacks were likely the work of Iran’s government.

“The Iranian government has recently attacked other encrypted methods of communication,” wrote Comodo on its website. “All of the above leads us to one conclusion only: that this was likely to be a state-driven attack.”

Had the attacks been successful, Internet users in Iran could have tried to log onto Gmail or Yahoo Mail, for instance, and been automatically re-directed to a fake website, which could have been used to steal usernames and passwords, or to install malware that could have been used to track online activity.

“It does not escape notice that the domains targeted would be of greatest use to a government attempting surveillance of Internet use by dissident groups,” wrote Comodo.

Comodo admits that the fraudulent SSL certificate purchases were executed with “clinical accuracy.” The company also says that the IP addresses appearing to originate from Iran “may be the result of an attacker attempting to lay a false trail.” So it remains possible that Iran had nothing to do with the attack, but the “circumstantial evidence” surrounding the attacks suggests it did.

Trackback URL: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/iran-accused-of-cyber-attack-on-google-yahoo-skype/trackback/

View the original article here

Burma bans Skype, severing global communication

Burma restricts communications even more, and in a country where a cell phone is a luxury, this means reaching out to the world is nearly impossible.
Earlier this month we reported that Burma had timidly entered among the countries joining the Facebook revolutions. The Facebook page “Just Do It Against Military Dictatorship” gathered steam (which has since somewhat level off), and it appeared that activists were attempting to use the extremely limited Internet access Burma had. While every country involved in the social-media bred demonstrations has struggled against an oppressive government, Burmese authorities are known for their extreme violence against citizens. As famed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi said regarding the uprising, “the people have stood in Burma before, as you know, and in those instances they were fired upon by the army.”
Now it appears that just the inkling of citizen uprising is enough to make the country tighten its grip on access to the rest of the world. According to Global Post, Skype has been blocked and other VoIP platforms are being banned as well. The Post also reminds us that using Internet cafes for VoIP international calls are one of the few ways the reclusive country’s citizens have of communicating with the rest of the world. Mobile phones and other personal devices for communication are wildly expensive: For example, owning your own cell phone number (just the SIM card, not the hardware or accompanying software) is about $1,700. And how does that translate here? The worth of a dollar is obviously much higher in the very poor country, so it would be akin to charging a US citizen $72,000 for a mobile number. So free or inexpensive VoIP software is an important asset to the Burmese.
The larger motivation to cut Skype and similar services could obviously be to increase increase profits for the government-owned phone company within the country, but there have been reports before the latest restriction that the Burmese government would be restricting access to information about the Middle Eastern revolutions. A report in the New York Times yesterday claimed that the Chinese government is also taking precautions, and that if the word “protest” is heard over phone lines, the call is immediately cut. China also recently shutdown hundreds of thousands of Internet cafes. Still, money may be the larger issue at play in Burma, but this all just means the oppressive government can kill two birds with one stone by cutting VoIP services.

View the original article here