11/18/2009 - SPEAR PHISHING E-MAILS TARGET U.S. LAW FIRMS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS
11/17/09—The FBI assesses with high confidence that hackers are using spear phishing e-mails with malicious payloads to exploit U.S. law firms and public relations firms. During the course of ongoing investigations, the FBI identified noticeable increases in computer exploitation attempts against these entities. In addition to appearing to originate from a trusted source based on the relevance of the subject line, the attachment name and message body are also crafted to associate with the same specific business interests. Opening a message will not directly compromise the system or network because the malicious payload lies in the attachment or linked domain. Infection occurs once someone opens the attachment or clicks the link, which launches a self-executing file and, through a variety of malicious processes, attempts to download another file.
For more information, go to the FBI’s website (www.fbi.gov).
