If you have an eBay account, you have probably been notified that eBay has been breached and you should change your passwords. How could this have happened?  The bad guys used their favorite tool -- spearphishing.  In an interview with USA Today,  JD Sherry, vice president for technology and solutions for Trend Micro, a computer security firm said that is it likely the attackers used spearphishing to steal the data. "It's extremely stealthy," Sherry says. "These are carefully crafted slow and low attacks that try not to tip off corporate computer security." Such breaches can remain undetected for months, allowing hackers [...]

We recently attended a fascinating webinar presented by the cybersecurity experts at Mandiant, a FireEye company. The webinar,  entitled Tools of Engagement – Zero Dark 243 Days,  presented real world examples of the important cybersecurity maxim of Dr. Frederick Chang, former NSA Director of Research: … cybersecurity is fundamentally about an adversarial engagement. Humans must defend machines that are attacked by other humans using machines. It was interesting to hear the Mandiant experts describe how, after determining they were being attacked, the defenders were able to use information gleaned from the spearphishing attack to identify the attack command and control infrastructure.  Of [...]

Verizon has just release their 2014 Data Breach Investigations Report. Figure 6 shows the rapid growth of cyberespionage: Figure 61 shows a decline in spearphishing from 95% to 78%. So, what's happening?  Is spearphishing on the way out?  Hardly.  Verizon writes: It’s interesting that, while the array of tools is diverse, the basic methods of gaining access to a victim’s environment are not. The most prolific is the old faithful: spear phishing. We (and others) have covered this ad nauseam in prior reports, but for both of you who have somehow missed it, here goes: A well-crafted and personally/professionally-relevant email is sent to a targeted user(s), prompting [...]

FireEye has released the 2014 edition of the M-Trends report.  If you care about APT, you should read this report. If you don't care about APT, you should read this report -- then you will care about APT.  Spearphishing dominates the report as the infiltration means of choice. There are two graphics from the report which emphasize a point we made in Time - It's on the Attackers' Side. Time On Target Time To Compromise   The lesson here is to deny time on target by interrupting the kill chain as early as possible. SP Guard disrupts the [...]

FireEye researchers have observed numerous spearphishing attacks which are using news about the disappearance of Malaysian Flight MH 370 as spearphishing bait.  While FireEye is focused on the malware that is  being delivered, at Iconix we are focused on the method being used to deliver the malware -- spearphishing. In each case reported by FireEye, the bad guys have exploited interest about Malaysian Flight MH 370 to deceive the email recipient into compromising his system.  The deceptive email contains an equally deceptive payload which installs malware on the victim's system.  The spearphishing attacker researchers his targets to create powerful urgency [...]