Saudi Arabia unrest shows on the Internet
Digital attacks are increasingly acting as a barometer of political tension worldwide and point the way towards predicting where social unrest is about to take place in the wake of cyber unrest.
Civil disobedience, street anarchy and the planning for complex subversive incidents is increasingly conduited through the internet and appears to be galvanised by the same sources of radical inspiration and incitement.
The mi2g Intelligence Unit tracked and announced a wave of overt digital attacks with anti-American and anti-Royal-regime sentiments that were occurring across Gulf Co-operation Council countries including Saudi Arabia on 10th April this year that pointed towards physical militant or
subversive activity as a possible follow on.
This was before the suicide bombings occurred on 13th May in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In the same way, the mi2g Intelligence Unit noticed patterns of escalating digital attacks against Australia from pro-Islamic hacking groups in late September and early October 2002 before the Bali bombings on 12th October last year. Also, the number of cyber attacks against Italy from Morocco and Pakistan had shown a marked increase in February before the arrest of militants from those countries planning attacks on NATO sites in March 2003.
"Just because we have a lot of data on global digital attacks and their motivations, our SIPS engine is able to uncover consistent early developments of geo-political unrest. Properly applied, this could actually help to reduce exposure for large corporations and government agencies by getting their non-essential staff out of troubled regions and mitigating consequences through focused business continuity planning," said DK Matai, Executive Chairman, mi2g.
Furthermore, a rising tide of digital attacks against Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar is gathering momentum.
These cyber events suggest social and political turbulence as a result of the power fluctuations elsewhere in the region.
"Winning the land war in Iraq is on course. Keeping the peace whilst bringing democracy to Iraq is equally important," said DK Matai, Executive Chairman of mi2g. "The toppling of Saddam's regime is giving citizens of GCC countries and Iran a stronger sense for democracy. External and internal forces appear to be making this point by launching attacks on representative governments' computer systems."
While the majority digital attacks in the Middle East are launched by groups operating outside the region, some local groups such as Arab VieruZ, a Saudi group targeting internal as well as external targets, have grown in stature following the outbreak of war.
Significant Denial of Service (DoS) and vandalism attack victims include over 10 government targets in Saudi Arabia in March and early April including The Directorate of Education in the Eastern Province as well as 8 government and organizational targets in Iran such as The City of Isfahan and The Electrical Engineering society in Ardabil.
The Massive Denial of Service (MDoS) attacks seen in GCC countries as well as Iran and Turkey have caught many online businesses and government departments completely unprepared. The digital eye of the Middle East DoS storm, which is consuming enough bandwidth to make the users experience a significant slowdown, sets a precedent for digital unrest particularly in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and Turkey as a result of the Iraq war.
Some hacker groups from North and South America are now aiding the greater cyber freedom movement within the traditional regimes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE through the messages being left behind, which often include political messages against Israel, the US and UK as well as condemnation for the GCC governments.
Both the pro-war and anti-war supporters continue to target Turkish and Israeli computer systems. The Turkish government computers have been the fifth most targeted in the last twelve months including March 2003.
www.mi2g.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Comments
Post new comment