The latest phishing attack happening is a fake subpeona for a California court, targetting senior executives around the country. Thousands of potential victims, those blue suited muckety mucks, have received emails containing a very credible looking image of a subpoena, referencing a lawsuit and providing a weblink to get more information. Those who fail to engage the software between their ears will find that malicious spyware software has been loaded onto their computer when they visit the destination website. That spyware will then be used to monitor any online banking activity and forward the account and password to the phishers.
So should I be insulted? I like to think I'm doing pretty well but I haven't received even a one of these emails. Now, like most people who've worked in Corporate America for more than a minute, I've been involved in a few litigious matters. And not once have I ever received a direct subpoena and certainly never by email. A typical subpoena is delivered either by process server or directly to your corporate counsel. I just spoke with a senior attorney in the US Department of Labor to confim that email is never used (to his knowledge) as a method for delivering the bad news.
What if getting these emails means, in a warped kind of way, that you are on top of your corporate game. And will we start to see Wall Street types bragging about how many spear phishing attacks they get? One can never tell.
Original posting date: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 | 12:30 PM |