Spam News

'Group A' spear-phishing attackers re-emerge

Friday, June 12, 2009

An Eastern European gang of cybercriminals known as Group A has re-emerged after several months without activity to launch a new spear-phishing attack targeting small business owners, the Washington Post reported.

The gang was believed to be responsible for earlier spear-phishing attacks that spoofed websites for the Better Business Bureau and the IRS in order to steal victims' login credentials for bank accounts.

In the latest attack, spotted by IT security firm iDefense, the gang sends out phishing emails to business owners telling them that their money transfer has gone through and they should click a link to confirm, the Post's Security Fix blog reported.

The link downloads a Trojan horse onto the user's computer. When the user attempts to sign on to a bank website, the Trojan steals the password information so the hackers can steal from the user's account.

Phishing attacks are highly effective against users who don't spot the telltale signs of a fake website, such as spelling mistakes or suspiciously altered domain names, according to research from web security firm VeriSign.