Today Iconix released a whitepaper entitled, “Defending Against Advanced Persistent Threats.” As the whitepaper describes, the United States, its allies and its industries are engaged in cyber warfare.  A leaked secret State Department cable describes a cyberwarfare attack: Since late 2002, USG organizations have been targeted with social-engineering online attacks by BC [Byzantine Condor] actors. … BC actors typically gain initial access with the use of highly targeted socially engineered e-mail messages, which fool recipients into inadvertently compromising their systems [spear-phishing]. The intruders then install malware such as customized keystroke-logging software and command-and-control (C&C) utilities onto the compromised systems and exfiltrate [...]

“Target – The Human” in the May 2011 issue of Information Security provides a detailed discussion of the social engineering schemes that are being used to compromise data processing systems. The article quotes Shawn Moyer, managing principal research consultant with Accuvant LABS R&D team: A common mistake enterprise security managers make is focusing on infrastructure and system defenses instead of people. A lot of defenders still think in terms of an attacker on the Internet externally trying to find a way in. … The reality is, if I’m the outside threat, I find an insider and that insider becomes your [...]

Today Iconix released a whitepaper entitled, “Phishing Training – A Losing Cyberwar Strategy.” As the whitepaper describes, the United States, its allies and its industries are engaged in cyber warfare.  A leaked secret State Department cable describes a cyberwarfare attack: Since late 2002, USG organizations have been targeted with social-engineering online attacks by BC [Byzantine Condor] actors. ... BC actors typically gain initial access with the use of highly targeted socially engineered e-mail messages, which fool recipients into inadvertently compromising their systems [spear-phishing]. The intruders then install malware such as customized keystroke-logging software and command-and-control (C&C) utilities onto the compromised systems [...]

A few minutes ago Barbara Penland, Oak Ridge National Laboratory spokeswoman, issued an email saying, "We are delighted to announce that Internet connectivity has been restored at ORNL." Why is this news?  Because on April 15, 2011, ORNL was taken off-line in response to a spear-phishing attack that compromised its systems. As ORNL has learned, traditional security methods can’t detect and stop low volume, highly targeted spear-phishing email and training isn’t effective. What can be done to defend the enterprise against spear-phishing?  The enterprise can adopt a tool that identifies trusted email so that the target of the spear-phishing attack [...]