{"id":11055,"date":"2012-07-23T08:55:21","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T15:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11055"},"modified":"2012-07-23T08:55:21","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T15:55:21","slug":"hacking-for-freedom-hacktivists-rule-against-bahrain-regime-supporters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=11055","title":{"rendered":"Hacking for Freedom – hacktivists rule against Bahrain Regime supporters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bahraini firms facing cyber attack threats<\/strong>
\n22 July, 2012 – Bahrain News<\/p>\n

Bahraini businesses, which receive an average of 2,000 to 3,000 cyber threats per month, are unprepared in the event of a major IT security assault, according to experts in the kingdom.<\/p>\n

National carrier Gulf Air, which saw disruptions to its corporate website as well as had its Facebook page hacked, told our sister publication the Gulf Daily News (GDN) that cyber crime is a serious threat to the aviation industry and large Bahraini companies, in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a high-profile company and the kingdom\u2019s national carrier, Gulf Air, like other large Bahraini companies, is a target and we take cyber crime extremely seriously,\u201d said IT director Jassim Haji.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity for large gains is fuelling the criminal underground, while \u2018hacktivists\u2019 looking to advance their agendas see penetrating networks as a great way to draw attention to their cause,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The airline has since stepped up security systems by building a disaster recovery centre located remotely from its headquarters, where all data is transferred and stored in real time.<\/p>\n

Small and medium enterprises, however, are not so lucky.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall businesses are at great loss,\u201d said Al Hilal Group networks specialist Sayed Alaa Al Marzooq Sayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome medium-sized companies have disaster recovery systems in order to back up data. It takes one or two days to restore the system. It costs a lot of time when all systems crash,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you have no backup, you won\u2019t be able to access information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bahrain\u2019s banking sector is also on high alert against any potential threat to its systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe receive almost 2,000 to 3,000 threats per month,\u201d said Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance senior IT support engineer Mohammed Abdulkareem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe carry security auditing of our system and we monitor them regularly besides providing for anti-virus protection. We advise our users not to view certain emails or open certain attachments,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Network security experts say most Bahrain-based users still fall for financial frauds on the Internet. \u201cPreviously, hackers would extract credit card details in one go. Now, they send you an email which sounds personal and proposes to transfer a certain amount of money,\u201d Abdulkareem said.<\/p>\n

He advised adopting a cautious approach towards using social networking websites as users usually from the opposite sex often extract vital financial and personal information.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t target credit cards now but go directly for bank statements. Many people in Bahrain have lost thousands of dinars,\u201d he said. He also warned of the dangers of backdoor attacks from using shared networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree WiFi in caf\u017ds sometimes don\u2019t belong to the caf\u017d but to some other user,\u201d Abdulkareem said. \u201cIf you access bank websites from the Internet, a packet will be copied and your information will be gleaned. Bahrain is not at all prepared. Only 20 per cent of companies are prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gulf Air, meanwhile, said the government was stepping up its efforts to protect Bahrain\u2019s businesses against cyber security lapses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an Internet crimes division at the Interior Ministry with whom we work very closely to ensure that all possible precautions are taken to safeguard Gulf Air\u2019s corporate assets and reputation,\u201d said Haji.<\/p>\n

Security experts say the recent spate of attacks against Bahraini companies is because the country has come under the radar of foreign \u2018hacktivist\u2019 groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople will always go where there\u2019s the lowest risk,\u201d forensics expert Tony Tesar said. \u201cDeveloping countries and new markets, where defence capabilities are not established, always present opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cost of maintaining a team to constantly protect systems is much more than the damage caused by the threat, said Tesar who is security and risk management director at security firm RTI Limited.<\/p>\n

\u201cBahrain has come under the radar of many hacktivist groups who have claimed responsibility for attacks carried out against high-profile institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bahrain has been placed in the spotlight because of the unrest, Tesar added. \u201cI think Bahrain is aware of the threat from cyber attacks and a lot of companies are putting defences in place, so they are employing companies half way across the world to do it for them.\u201d …source<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bahraini firms facing cyber attack threats 22 July, 2012 – Bahrain News Bahraini businesses, which receive an average of 2,000 to 3,000 cyber threats per month, are unprepared in the event of a major IT security assault, according to experts in the kingdom. National carrier Gulf Air, which saw disruptions to its corporate website as more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3233],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11055"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11057,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11055\/revisions\/11057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}