Secure Tibet?
United Press International has posted a disturbing analysis of recent “cyber” attacks against Tibet advocacy groups, particularly in the US. The article outlines increasingly common behavior that is rarely reported because the victims, often corporations, typically do not like to advertise their breach.
Van Horenbeeck told United Press International that the attacks used e-mails purporting to come from known associates of the victims with attachments containing malicious code — so-called Trojan horse software — that stole e-mail and contact data, passwords and other information and covertly sent it on the Internet to special command servers.
We often use common sense to determine whether or not we should trust an email. If it’s from an address we don’t recognize or references a conversation we never participated in it sets off red flags. But, when the email looks like it’s coming from a person you know and simply continues an ongoing conversation you’re familiar with it causes us to lower our guard.
Malicious hackers are using intercepted emails to execute this kind of advanced social engineering. They’ve really stepped up the arms race and made secure encrypted email that much more important to protecting your inbox.
The Trojans and other malicious software used in the Tibet attacks are similar to those used in attacks against the unclassified computer networks of U.S. defense contractors, the Department of Energy’s nuclear labs and other sensitive government agencies, but experts caution against reading too much into this, saying that the software is easily available on hacker Web sites.
Click here to read the full article. Really interesting.
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