Yar, Them Hackers Are Whaling For Some Big Phish
A week after the big RSA security show, the hackers (or phishers or whatever) are back in the headlines.
This time the issue is a new twist on phishing attempts which rather than try to reach the masses with promises of cheap viagra and untold riches waiting to be claimed are aimed at the executive ranks at large corporations and purport to be a subpoena from a U.S. District Court. John Markoff of the New York Times had an article on whaling (going after the big phish, get it?) on the front page of the Wednesday business section.
While it is always tempting to say that phishers, hackers and other assorted digital scammers will always go where the money is, you could also add that they like to go for the most money and the most gullible. Courts don't go around emailing subpoenas and since it is tax season it is good to remember that the IRS doesn't go around emailing either. Here is the lesson for CIOs and IT execs, now is a good time to ask for that extra money for another layer of email scanning software. Email is still the way most viruses get into a company's network and clicking on bogus links is still the way those viruses get initiated. Explain to your boss that he or she is a whale of a target for phishers.
Retailers, e-commerce developers and security vendors should be paying close attention to the data breach case unfolding around the Hannaford Brothers Cos. Unlike many data breaches in the past that fall into the "smash and grab" category, the Hannaford breach (which may affect 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers) appears to have been a well-orchestrated theft of real-time credit data moving across the network and apparently meeting most of the current security standards.