Iranian hacking group extend scope of cyber-attacks

Written by Jackson Irvine Friday, 06 May 2011 10:26

As previously reported by AAN, an Iranian hacking group P8H8 has in recent days targeted the official website of popular military game Arma 2 with a series of digital defacements which have left the developers and security experts baffled, both by the means in which the hacking group are carrying out the attacks and more specifically the reason for the attacks and the mysterious information being left behind following each attack.

AAN can now report that not only has there been a further wave of attempted hacks by P8H8, but this time the hacking group went after a number of websites affiliated with arma2.com which has sent a shiver of panic right through the core of the Arma2 community.

At 2200 GMT last night, three Arma2 community websites: Ofpec.com, Armaholic.com and ArmedAssault.info were targeted for defacement apparently by P8H8, web and security experts at the three sites fiercely battled against the cyber-attacks and we can report that as of this morning all three have confirmed to us that they avoided actually being defaced by P8H8, the contents of the websites was protected and the hackers were this time foiled in their attempts, the only thing they managed to do was upload one mysterious file to the servers of each website.

The Bohemia Interactive community is abuzz with this latest development and there is wild speculation as to the meaning for everything that has happened to date, while many are concerned about how far this seemingly untouchable hacking group will go to further their aims, most are occupied with trying to solve what has become a stunningly mysterious riddle, early analysis of the image indicate that it contains a hidden url in the properties as well as a number of characters hidden in the depths of the actual image, which can only be detected by acute ocular observations. The codes were identified as video reference codes for the popular video sharing website Youtube, the codes equate to three different videos: Tom Waits "Black Wings", Rihanna "Breaking Dishes" & Bruce Springsteen "The Wrestler". One of the available hypotheses appears to point to exact time stamps during the videos.

Whilst we have no specific details about a continuation of planned attacks, it does appear that the hackers still have an agenda that they have not finished pushing. AAN this morning attempted to contact Bohemia Interactive for a statement but were met with a terse “no comment”, after attempting to explain that they had a duty to assure the Arma2 community that they aren’t in further danger from the hackers, we received a further reply of “the situation is on-going and we have nothing to say until we have concluded a full investigation.” We can only advise the Arma2 community as a whole to stay alert, be vigilant, and to trust no-one.