I.M.F. Hit by Sophisticated Cyberattack

I.M.F. Hit by Sophisticated Cyberattack

www.nytimes.com

The International Monetary Fund, still struggling to find a new leader after the arrest of its managing director last month in New York, was hit recently by what computer experts describe as a large and sophisticated cyberattack whose dimensions are still unknown.

The fund, which manages financial crises around the world and is the repository of highly confidential information about the fiscal condition of many nations, told its staff and its board of directors about the attack on Wednesday. But it did not make a public announcement.

Several senior officials with knowledge of the attack

(visit the link for the full news article)

The article is short on details of who the attackers were, but I find it funny that the reporters didn't add in the possibility of anonymous being involved since they publicly announced their support of the people of Greece and put the bullseye on the IMF only few days ago..

International Monetary Fund Braces For Possible Hack Attack From Anonymous

According to the Wall Street Journal, an IMF spokesperson confirms that it is taking measures to safeguard against a possible hack attack from cybervigilante group Anonymous.

"We are aware of the threat, and have taken appropriate action," an IMF spokesman told the WSJ.

WIth all the high profile cyberattacks recently, one has to wonder if this isn't all part of a grand plan?

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Do you think that "part of the plan" is to Target free thinking websites like ATS for the sake of National Security?

Are they gearing up for censurship?

i guess china or some insignificant group such as anon will be fingered. It stands to reason that no matter what is being said and obviously not much is being said although it was long overdue it sure seems like and if you have the visualization ability of creating links to so called attacks that they are heading and working around the fortress nibbling away at the network before the frontal assault, don't you think ?

I am curious what this means..."experts describe as a large and sophisticated cyberattack whose dimensions are still unknown."...how much damage was really done? Did somebodys email get hacked and now they are all in a panic because of Anonymous's threat or is it much bigger?

I will stay tuned to see what the official story is (if they release that information) and then we will know how big a part of "the grand plan" this really might be.

Good stuff though for sure!

what could someone gain access to by 'hacking' the imf? Access to emails?

Where did this attack originate from? The US?

reply to post by niceguybob


Not sure if it's only censorship in the horizon, I (purely speculating here), can see this as a move to CONTROL the internet, since technology is advancing so rapidly that it isn't just computers, it's now smartphones, tablets, game systems etc etc.. that are tied to the web, and add in the huge amount of $$$$ generated by all of these combined.

The glue in all of this is the web? It's no surprise that you have Bill Gates, and folks from Google, Amazon, Facebook attending the Bilderberg meetings..

Like I said .. speculating on this, but I don't think it is an accident that the high profile attacks are ramping up.

Sony, Lockheed Martin, NATO, IMF et al...

You don't mess with folks like this without seeing a serious reaction. It's how they are going to react that disturbs me.

Didn't Obama unilaterally decree any cyber attack on the U.S. shall be considered an act of war. And didn't Obama also unilaterally decree that he has the unchecked authority to wage war anywhere in the world in spite of the War Powers Act. And isn't Anonymous spread all over the world, including the United States.

Do you see what's going on?

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are


Do you see what's going on?

Your reaching really far in your interpretation of events?

Originally posted by incrediblelousminds

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are


Do you see what's going on?

Your reaching really far in your interpretation of events?

No I don't. And I'm sure many of us have come to some vaguely similar conclusion. Haven't you been paying attention to the post 9/11 slippery slope?

how sophisticated?
4chan sophisticated or stuxnet sophisticated?

i know for a fact that some greek based hackers have had their sights on the imf for quite a while.

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
Didn't Obama unilaterally decree any cyber attack on the U.S. shall be considered an act of war. And didn't Obama also unilaterally decree that he has the unchecked authority to wage war anywhere in the world in spite of the War Powers Act. And isn't Anonymous spread all over the world, including the United States.

Do you see what's going on?

The main problem on a realistic level is that to bomb or invade a nation of known a cyber attack it needs to have a point of origin. Since cyber attacks are conducted without any given point of origin it is simply impossible to finger a single point. Therefore it is a total fail and its simply the media that is providing fuel to those not aware of the complexity of trying to pin point an origin. Attacks can be performed while someone or a group decide to go transit to various nations under the disguise of simply going on vacation, but all under a prime goal. Lets say you have 50 individual's who each person has a zombie network of over 1-20k machines, now combine that on predefined time attack on any given network and bam, you have your successful blitz on a minor scale ofc. As for connecting to the net, well that is the easiest thing to achieve these days, since every nation has some form of wifi connection either locked or open.

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
Haven't you been paying attention to the post 9/11 slippery slope?

I would expect the "everyman" to not be able to piece these things together. Doesn't the "everyman have the attention span of, oh... let's say - the 24 hour news cycle. For instance - Fukashima. Ask the "everyman" on the street and he'll say Fukawhat? Didn't that blow over a long time ago, etc. like it's something from the long distant past. Like it's not still going on in the worst way. These people don't care to hear what's actually going on. Don't care to investigate. I could go on and on.

My point?

I'd expect that from the average sleeping idiot, but not from the discriminating critical thinkers here on ATS. And it's really not that much of a leap. Just look around at how insidiously the U.S. has changed since 9/11.

Originally posted by cerebralassassins

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
Didn't Obama unilaterally decree any cyber attack on the U.S. shall be considered an act of war. And didn't Obama also unilaterally decree that he has the unchecked authority to wage war anywhere in the world in spite of the War Powers Act. And isn't Anonymous spread all over the world, including the United States.

Do you see what's going on?

The main problem on a realistic level is that to bomb or invade a nation of known a cyber attack it needs to have

I'll finish this one for you. It needs to have a pretense.

ETA: Wheras before a Congressional Declaration of War against a sovereign nation was necessary to wage war now the President can unilaterally wage war anywhere in the world including on U.S. soil to defend against hackers. Or domestic Constitutionalist "terrorists". Or whatever else he deems necessary. Unchecked.

But there has to be at least a pretense. A concocted reason. A ploy. A sham. A diversion. A scam. A lie. A deception. An imaginary reason. You do remember Iraq, yes? Oh, but we would never invade a country for no good reason, now would we. Or set up the SS at the airports and train stations. Not us. Not here.

Originally posted by AnotherYOU
how sophisticated?
4chan sophisticated or stuxnet sophisticated?

i know for a fact that some greek based hackers have had their sights on the imf for quite a while.

You are correct only two days ago an individual was arrested for lets say, taking a looksi into fbi , nato and nsa computers. I am aware that some members have friends within the fbi and they can simply ring them up now and ask about it all, as its only about 48hrs old as news although the fbi has been looking for this person for a lengthy period of time. Funny thing, this guy is only 19 but his successful intrusions begun when he was 15, his academic skills are poor to below standard but his computer programming ability have unofficially caused a group of alpha guys requesting greek authorities to meet this kid and ask him the obvious ( would you like to work for us, btw he has been set free but restricted to his home and under surveillance. )

Aaaaahhhhh geez !!!!
I'm all broken up inside !!!
It couldn't have happened
to a nicer bunch of folks.

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are

Originally posted by cerebralassassins

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
Didn't Obama unilaterally decree any cyber attack on the U.S. shall be considered an act of war. And didn't Obama also unilaterally decree that he has the unchecked authority to wage war anywhere in the world in spite of the War Powers Act. And isn't Anonymous spread all over the world, including the United States.

Do you see what's going on?

The main problem on a realistic level is that to bomb or invade a nation of known a cyber attack it needs to have

I'll finish this one for you. It needs to have a pretense.

sure..hey, lets shut down the computer network to lax. there you go, nice and simple, while were at it, how about we shut down a power grid and hype the media along with its citizens at the potential danger and life threatening outcome, now lets add to that hype, that several hospitals that handled children and terminal ill people to the fuel and you suddenly have the sentiment and more or less the approval of what ever one is being told and requesting. See problem solved internally, now how does one handle the external problem if it originates from within ?

TPTB: "Our money's not safe! Pass internet ID!"
Politician Sock Puppets: "Yes we must have internet ID to be safe"

real hackers = don't care they can get around it
everyday people = screwed

privacy & freedom = torpedoed
government control = expanded

reply to post by JacKatMtn

Not sure if it's only censorship in the horizon, I (purely speculating here), can see this as a move to CONTROL the internet, since technology is advancing so rapidly that it isn't just computers, it's now smartphones, tablets, game systems etc etc.. that are tied to the web, and add in the huge amount of $$$$ generated by all of these combined.

I couldn't agree more. Whenever they decide to bring the hammer down on all of our internet freedoms these attacks will be used as reason why they did it, and we will be forced to go along with it.

Hum, very interesting. I do wonder if they will discover secret documents have been compromised and therefore give an out for the data which has probably already been exposed?

Is anon real or some kind front?