Hackers Target Corporate Execs and Their Families
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Hackers are likely researching victims on social networking sites such as Linked In, MySpace or Facebook.
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The security threats against business-technology systems continue to multiply. Not only do malicious worms and viruses such as Blaster and Bagle continue to wreak havoc, but security pros
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A new hacking method is causing concern for the lengths it goes to avoid detection by security software and researchers.
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The holidays are ripe for hackers, spammers and spies who go after personal information from holiday shoppers and write special programs to infect new computers when they first go online.
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InfoWorld - Hackers are trying to play on business&#39; fear of legal action from customers to trick them into downloading a harmful program distributed through e-mail.
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Companies, governments, and individuals are increasingly vulnerable to Internet attacks by terrorists and hackers.
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If you read the news, you'd think that most cybercriminals are lonely, maladjusted teenage hackers stealing credit card numbers from their windowless rooms. But the real damage is being done by organized syndicates, and they're playing for much higher stakes.
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About 140 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to hack into the computer networks of the U.S. government and U.S. companies, a top counterintelligence official said.
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Phishing is one of the fastest-growing forms of personal fraud in the world. While consumers are the most obvious victims, the damage spreads far wider--hurting companies&#39; finances and reputations and potentially
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A NEW level of cyber-crime potential looms ahead as increasingly sophisticated attackers aim to steal intellectual property, personal identities and the contents of bank accounts across international borders, and within organisations and social networks.
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A massive rise in phishing attacks this year may lead on to customised email security attacks targeted specifically at individual or small groups of companies, according to email security firm MessageLabs.
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Hackers are finding financial rewards in their actions, and criminals are increasing their dependence on IT. The combination, and the increased technical sophistication of the bad guys, worries a top federal prosecutor.
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Despite having a greater awareness of the security risks posed by careless computing habits and personal Internet activity carried out on corporate laptops, many remote workers continue to do things that imperil the safety of themselves and their employers, according to a new report from Cisco.
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Computer security experts estimate that tens of millions of personal computers are infected with malicious software. Some are keyloggers, recording every key stroke that the user enters -- sending valuable bank account information, passwords and credit card numbers to hackers.
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Worried about that strange guy in the next cube? Study says those likely to sabotage corporate systems can be identified ahead of time by personality and behavior traits.
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Users of the popular QuickBooks small business accounting software have been warned that they risk losing data and control of their PCs to hackers.
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(InfoWorld) - Hackers appear to have stepped up their efforts to trick corporate executives into downloading malicious software programs that can steal company data over the past year, according to new data released Monday. MessageLabs, a security vendor that offers e-mail filtering services to catch spam and malicious attachments, caught an average of 10 e-mails per day in May targeted at people in senior management positions, up from just one a day a year prior, said Mark Sunner, chief security analyst. Those 10 e-mails are a very small percentage of the 200 million e-mails that MessageLabs scans every day, but the composition of those messages is what's alarming, Sunner said. Many of the e-mails contained the name and title of the executive in the subject line, as well as a malicious Microsoft Word document containing executable code. The hackers are trying to trick the victim into thinking the messages comes from someone they know, in the hope that the victim will willingly install, for example, a program that can record keystrokes. MessageLabs won't reveal what companies have been targeted of late, but it has contacted executives who have been targeted and heard their family members have also received messages on their own, non-corporate e-mail accounts, Sunner said. Those methods suggests that hackers may be researching victims and culling data from social networking sites such as Linked In, MySpace, or Facebook, Sunner said. "If you really want to work out somebody's background ... you can actually find out a lot," Sunner said. Tricking a relative into installing malicious code would offer the hacker another way to collect sensitive data, if an executive decides to do some work on a home computer, Sunner said. During June, MessageLabs picked up more than 500 of these targeted messages, with some 30 percent aimed at chief investment officers -- a position that can include handling acquisitions and mergers. Other positions targeted include directors of research and development, company presidents, CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs. Another danger is that the targeted messages are often just single messages sent to a single person, rather than a mass spam run. When hackers send out millions of messages, security companies often either update their software or change their spam filters to trap the bad messages. But single messages have a higher chance of slipping through, although Sunner said MessageLabs' filtering service catches the messages by analyzing the e-mail's attachment and determining whether it is potentially harmful. Other security companies catch malware by updating their software with indicators, or signatures, to detect harmful code or block code from running based on what it does on a computer, a technology called behavioral detection. Tracing where the messages come from is difficult, since the sender's name is always fake, Sunner said. The IP address from which the messages were sent indicate computers that are located around the world. Hackers often use networks of computers they already control, called botnets, to send e-mails. "Certainly, people need to raise the level of vigilance," Sunner said.