hacking back

Pierluigi Paganini July 16, 2020
CIA covert operations likely behind attacks against APT34 and FSB

CIA orchestrated dozens of hacking operations against targets worldwide, including APT34 and FSB hacks, states an exclusive report from Yahoo News. In 2018, US President Trump gave to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) more powers to conduct covert offensive cyber operations against hostile threat actors, including Iranian and Russian APT groups and intelligence agencies. In […]

Pierluigi Paganini April 09, 2020
Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) is hacking crooks behind Coronavirus-themed attacks

The Australian government will use any means to crack down on cybercriminals exploiting the coronavirus outbreak, including hacking back. While the number of Coronavirus-themed attacks continues to increase, law enforcement agencies are spending a significant effort to detect and neutralize them. The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) announced it will employ its offensive cyber capabilities against […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 08, 2019
Developer hacked back Muhstik ransomware crew and released keys

One of the victims of the Muhstik ransomware gang who initially paid the ransomware, decided to hack back the crooks and released their decryption keys. Tobias Frömel, is a German software developer, who was a victim of the Muhstik ransomware. Frömel initially paid the ransom to decrypt his files, but later decided to get his […]

Pierluigi Paganini August 31, 2018
Hacking The Hacker. Stopping a big botnet targeting USA, Canada and Italy

Today I’d like to share a full path analysis including a KickBack attack which took me to gain full access to an entire Ursniff/Gozi botnet. In other words:  from a simple “Malware Sample” to “Pwn the Attacker Infrastructure”. NB: Federal Police have already been alerted on such a topic as well as National and International […]

Pierluigi Paganini December 05, 2017
German Government prepares Law for backdoors and hacking back

The German Government is preparing a law that will force hardware vendors to include a backdoor in their products and to allow its unit to hack back. The German Government is preparing a law that will force hardware vendors to include a backdoor in their products. The law aims to allow law enforcement agencies to […]

Pierluigi Paganini November 05, 2016
The US Government is ready to hack back if Russia tries to hit Presidential Election

Documents and testimonials collected by the NBC news confirm US Government cyber army is ready to hack back if Russia tries to disrupt Presidential Election The alleged interference of Russian state-sponsored hackers into the 2016 Presidential election is triggering the response of the US. For the first time, a member of the US Presidential Staff has treated another country […]

Pierluigi Paganini November 01, 2016
Philip Hammond invokes an active defence of UK hacking back the attackers

The British Government announces an active defence posture in response to nation-state cyber attacks, Chancellor warns UK will retaliate against attacks. Hacking back, or “active defence” as security experts prefer to call it, is becoming a high debated argument. While the number of cyber attacks continues to increase and attackers are using even more sophisticated techniques, many Governments […]

Pierluigi Paganini October 29, 2016
Hacking back the Mirai botnet, technical and legal issues

Security researchers have found vulnerabilities in the source code of the Mirai botnet and devised a method to hack back it. The Mirai botnet, this name is familiar to security experts due to the massive DDoS attack that it powered against the Dyn DNS service a few days ago. The Mirai malware was first spotted […]