Shillong, August 7: A hacktivist collective known as Mysterious Team Bangladesh has been identified in a new report for carrying out over 750 distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and 78 website defacements since June 2022.
The group’s main targets have been government, financial, and transportation sector organizations, with a strong focus on India.
As per IANS, the cybersecurity firm Group-IB revealed that while the group emerged in 2020, it gained global attention in 2022 due to cyber assaults against significant targets in countries including India and Israel.
Researchers at Group-IB highlighted the seriousness of hacktivist threats, noting that these actors often target critical infrastructure, financial institutions, and governmental bodies. Unlike ransomware actors, hacktivists aim to disrupt systems without engaging in negotiations, potentially leading to substantial financial losses and reputational damage for the targeted organizations.
The motivation behind Mysterious Team Bangladesh’s actions is largely religious and political, as stated in the report.
Apart from India, the group has also targeted countries such as Australia, Senegal, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Ethiopia.
The report indicates that the hacktivists gained unauthorized access to web servers and administrative panels, likely exploiting known security vulnerabilities or weak passwords.
The group is reported to exploit vulnerabilities in platforms like PHPMyAdmin and WordPress, often relying on open-source tools for executing DDoS and defacement attacks.
The report further identified a Telegram user using the handle D4RK_TSN as the probable founder of Mysterious Team Bangladesh.
Researchers predict that the group’s activities will expand in the coming year, with an anticipated increase in attacks across Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and the Middle East.
