Category Archives: Latest Warnings

Fallout from Recent Spear Phishing Attacks?

December 15, 2010

McDonald’s and Walgreens this week revealed that data breaches at partner marketing firms had exposed customer information. There has been a great deal of media coverage treating these and other similar cases as isolated incidents, but all signs indicate they are directly tied to a spate of “spear phishing” attacks against e-mail marketing firms that have siphoned customer data from more than 100 companies in the past few months.

Spear Phishing Attacks Snag E-mail Marketers

November 24, 2010

Criminals have been conducting complex, targeted e-mail attacks against employees at more than 100 e-mail service providers (ESPs) over the past several months in a bid to hijack computers at companies that market directly to customers of some of the world’s largest corporations, anti-spam experts warn.

The attacks are a textbook example of how organized thieves can abuse trust relationships between companies to access important resources that are then recycled in future attacks.