One-Fifth of Fortune 100 Targeted in Massive Hacking Effort

October 28th, 2011

New analysis released this week reveals that hundreds of corporations were compromised in the same hacking effort that targeted security firm RSA in March 2011.

Three hundred command and control networks, primarily located in China, were used in the cyberattacks that began as early as November 2010. More than 760 organizations were shown to have been targeted, including more than 20 perfect of current Fortune 100 companies. What is not clear in the report released by security analyst Brian Krebs is the extent of each individual attack and whether sensitive data was successfully stolen.

Notable targets included Cisco Systems, eBay, Facebook, Freddie Mac, Google, Intel, Internal Revenue Service, Motorola, Novell, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, VMWare, and Wachovia Corp.

Dave Jevans, chairman of IronKey, maker of a security-focused Web browser, was quoted in a recent CNN article as saying, ”The only companies that haven’t been compromised in some way, shape, or form are either insanely small, lucky or secure. [...] I’m sure 90% of these companies are just finding out they’ve been hacked along with the rest of us. They don’t even know they’ve been penetrated.”

The full list of targeted organizations can be accessed at the Krebs On Security blog.