IMF in Cyber Attack
THE International Monetary Fund has become the latest victim of a cyber attack believed to be carried out by hackers connected to a foreign government. The breach occurred “over the last several months”, before Dominique Strauss-Kahn quit after being charged with attempted rape. The IMF's Board was apparently told of the attack on Wednesday and now the FBI is helping to investigate.
A security expert says the attack was clearly designed to infiltrate the IMF with the intention of gaining sensitive ‘insider privileged information. It seems the code used in the attack was specifically developed for the IMF system.
Over the past three months, Google, Sony, Lockheed Martin and Citigroup have all reported being the victims of cyber attacks.
It seems Google recently announced that several users of its Gmail service had been victims of a so-called phishing scam attempting to con them into disclosing their passwords. More precisely, it was a "spear phishing" attack in which the victims were carefully chosen: Many were either government officials or well-known academics who play a role in crafting U.S. policy toward China. And Indian Revenue officials happily use Gmail for their official correspondence!
It appears the intrusion may have been the result of a spear phishing attack. This kind of attack typically works by tricking an employee into clicking on a link to a malicious website or downloading a file loaded with malware.
Netizens should immediately do the following to try to prevent attacks.
++ Change your passwords – don't have the same password for several accounts.
++ Don't open suspicious attachments or links from mails you get even from your friends.
++ Build up a strong password. You can store all your passwords in KeePass, which is a free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and mobile devices. You can store your passwords in highly encrypted databases, which can only be unlocked with one master password and/or a key file. A database consists of only one file that can be transferred from one computer to another easily. The program supports password groups, in which you can sort your passwords into. You can drag-n-drop passwords into almost any other window.
++ You can be attacked even through the postal system – don't furnish information to unsolicited postal letters.
++ Check your bank accounts and other financial accounts regularly.
++ how to build better passwords without losing your mind is worth a read.