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Archive for the ‘Hackers’ Category

Looks like a new type of Social Engineering led to the recent attacks on Google:

via CNET

“The most significant discovery is that the attackers had selected employees at the companies with access to proprietary data, then learnt who their friends were,” the Financial Times reported. “The hackers compromised the social network accounts of those friends, hoping to enhance the probability that their final targets would click on the links they sent.”

“We’re seeing a lot more up-front reconnaissance, understanding who the players are at the company and how to reach them,” George Kurtz, chief technology officer at security firm McAfee, told the Financial Times. “Someone went to the trouble to backtrack: ‘Let me look at their friends, who I can target as a secondary person.’”

Watch out who you are chatting with and just like with email, don’t open anything unless you are sure it’s really from a friend.