‘White House’ eCard Dupes Dot-Gov Geeks
A malware-laced e-mail that spoofed seasons greetings from The White House siphoned gigabytes of sensitive documents from dozens of victims over the holidays, including a number of government employees and contractors who work on cybersecurity matters, KrebsOnSecurity.com has learned.
The attack appears to be the latest salvo from ZeuS malware gangs whose activities over the past year have blurred the boundaries between online financial crime and espionage, by stealing financial data and documents from victim machines. This activity is unusual because most criminals using ZeuS are interested in money-making activities – such as stealing banking passwords and creating botnets – whereas the hoovering up of sensitive government documents is typically associated with threats from China that are deployed to gather industrial or military intelligence.
