targeted attacks

Spam sinks to lowest level in almost three years, says Symantec

Think you're seeing less junk mail in your inbox these days? If so, it's not just your imagination.

The rate of spam across the world has hit close to a three-year low and now encompasses just 70 percent of all e-mails, according to Symantec's November Intelligence Report (PDF).

That number is a healthy drop from 2009 when spam accounted for 90 percent of all global e-mails. And it's close to the 68 percent level seen in late 2008 after the spam hosting ISP McColo was shut down.

In particular, pharmaceutical spam is at its lowest level … Read more

Symantec uncovers cyber espionage of chemical, defense firms

Hackers targeted about 50 organizations--including chemical and defense companies--in a global wave of cyber espionage attacks this summer, Symantec said in a report released today.

The goal apparently was to steal intellectual property such as design documents, formulas, and manufacturing processes. "The purpose of the attacks appears to be industrial espionage, collecting intellectual property for competitive advantage," according to the report. (PDF)

Meanwhile, French nuclear power group Areva was reportedly targeted in a cyber attack in September.

The wave of espionage attacks on the chemical and other firms started in late July and continued through mid-September, but command … Read more

Report: Targeted attacks aimed at Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail

Users of Hotmail and Yahoo Mail have had targeted attacks aimed at them similar to the attacks Google says have been directed at U.S. officials, political activists, and journalists who use Gmail, according to Trend Micro.

Google said earlier this week that it had disrupted a targeted phishing campaign against Gmail users that appeared to originate in China. The attackers were trying to monitor e-mails and use stolen passwords to change the settings in the accounts so that e-mails would be forwarded to their own accounts, Google said.

China has denied any responsibility and claims the U.S. is … Read more

Symantec report focuses on threat of targeted attacks

In the world of security, targeted attacks should be a real concern--and extremely worrisome--to organizations around the world, Symantec said in a new quarterly report on attacks on critical infrastructure.

"The customization of targeted attacks can make them more dangerous than non-targeted attacks because they are tailored explicitly to affect a target group," Symantec wrote in its quarterly report (PDF). The company said that targeted attacks are currently being used to take data from companies, steal information for financial gain, or to simply cause "mischief."

Targeted attacks have been gathering some notoriety over the past couple … Read more

Chinese schools deny links to Google attacks

Two days after a New York Times report linked two Chinese schools to hack attacks on Google and other Silicon Valley companies, both schools are denying those claims.

Security experts traced the attacks to computers at Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational School, The New York Times reported Thursday. But on Saturday, according to the Associated Press, China's official Xinhua News Agency cited a representative of the university calling the accusations "baseless" and an official from the vocational school saying its investigation turned up no evidence the intrusions originated on school machines.

Shanghai Jiaotong University is known … Read more

Behind the China attacks on Google (FAQ)

Computer attacks on corporations happen all the time, but most companies don't publicize them. They fear damage to their reputation and they don't want to jeopardize the investigation or reveal any information that could be used in future attacks.

Google shocked the security community on Tuesday by disclosing that it and other companies had been hit by attacks that originated in China, with some targeting Gmail users who were human rights activists. As a result, the search giant said it would stop censoring its Web results in China and could end up exiting that market altogether.

Google hasn'… Read more

U.S. law firm behind China piracy suit targeted in attacks

A U.S. law firm representing a Web content-filtering company in a piracy lawsuit against the Chinese government said on Wednesday that it received malicious e-mails in a targeted attack from China similar to recent attacks on Google and other U.S. companies.

At least 10 employees at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione received the e-mails on Monday and Tuesday, according to Gregory Fayer, a lawyer at the Los Angeles-based firm.

The firm filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit last week on behalf of Solid Oak Software against the Chinese government, two Chinese software developers, and seven PC manufacturers. The suit … Read more

China-based Google attacks similar to prior ones

Updated 11:45 a.m. PST January 14 to note that iDefense and Adobe now say that an Adobe vulnerability was not involved in the attacks and 8:18 a.m. PST January 13 with Rackspace comment.

The targeted attacks on Google and more than 30 other U.S. companies late last year bear striking similarities to targeted attacks on 100 U.S. companies last summer, a security researcher familiar with the attacks said Tuesday.

Last July, workers at about 100 U.S. technology companies were targeted with e-mails containing malicious PDF files that exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe … Read more