The number of hacktivist attacks that resulted in quantifiable damage to the victim has declined by 95 percent since 2015, according to IBM.
Data collected by IBM's X-Force threat intelligence unit between 2015 and 2019 shows that the number of hacktivist attacks dropped from 35 in 2015 to 24 in 2016 and only 5 in 2017. In 2018, only two incidents were recorded and no attacks have been observed by IBM so far in 2019.
It's worth noting, however, that IBM's data only includes attacks observed by reliable sources, only instances where someone took responsibility, and only if the attack resulted in quantifiable damage.
If a crack goes unnoticed and unclaimed, has it really occurred?
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Hacktivist Attacks Declined 95 Percent Since 2015: IBM
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @11:12PM (1 child)
How many SJWs have infested your HR department?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @01:19AM
Quite a few. And we'll keep hiring more until we find one who is SJW enough to recommend we tolerate people like you. Quite ironic, don'tcha think?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @11:37PM (2 children)
The for-profit attacks do not seem to have decreased. Have the grey hats decided to go black?
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday May 20 2019, @11:51PM (1 child)
I don't know of any data regarding that, but I suspect you're right. I also suspect that TOR and cryptocurrencies have contributed to this by making anonymous extortion easier. I'm still very glad that these projects exist, but it seems pretty obvious that they've had this effect.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @03:14AM
The whole hacktivist movement was primarily incited by the FBI and other government agencies, Tor has been shown easily deanonymizable (they're hiding behind misconfigured/hacked websites, but you can test for yourself with TBB/Nyx+Tor to see how little anonymity there actually is in Tor routes, meaning those nodes just need to be hosted or compromised by a 5 eyes friendly organization to help deanonymize other members of the network.
Bitcoin itself has never been anonymous, but also any hacktivists who were also involved in speculating or mining it have moved to more gentile pursuits after cashing partly or totally out. The rest are living the cyberpunk dystopian dream, as the last few I2P exchange owners did.
Now all that is left is people doing individual hacking and keeping their mouths shut, small cells of real hacktivists doing what they can under the radar, and larger 'hacktivist' groups who are really arms of NGOs or covers for government hackers either attacking foreign powers or using the pretense of domestic attacks to help enact more repressive anti-hacking laws in their own country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @03:21AM
"IBM X-Force" it says.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @01:24PM (1 child)
Phoenix of hell, you know a difference between cracking and hacking, do you?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 21 2019, @02:41PM
People, even geeks, don't seem to quibble about the difference anymore, but I did put "crack" in there for you. Thanks for noticing.
"Phoenix666" is a reference to my alma mater, whose symbol is the phoenix, and about which its alumni wryly say, "Hell does freeze over." (because Chicago gets really fucking cold in the winter)
Washington DC delenda est.