According to a recent research of Group-IB on cybercrime, senior management is considered among most popular targets.
Group-IB is one of the leading companies in fraud prevention, cybercrime and high-tech crime investigations. The firm reported that cyber criminals use personal and confidential data of senior management of different financial institutions and companies for targeted attacks, including fraud and online-banking theft.
C Level executives are being targeted and drilled down on with specific attacks meanwhile HR managers are targeted due the sensitive information they manage.
Below is a good example, it's a post from an underground forum that demonstrates the hacker’s interest to confidential data on CEO and top management of different well known brands, following the translation from Russian:
“Will buy information about the following companies:
- Linkedin, Verizon, GoDaddy, British American Tobaco, Dupont, Pepsi, Names.co.uk, Facebook (private companies)
- Commerzbank, Reiffeisen, RBS, Bank of America, Wells, Wachovia, Citibank + any russians, having online-banking
Interested in email + password, any stolen accounts of its employees in social networks (Facebook + Linkedin), will pay good, before selling need to have a garant and checking.
Interested in hacked accounts and data on:
- system administrators;
- top managers (operational managers, heads of the departments)
Reach me only through PM, confidential and in 1 hands
WIll talk only under OTR/NDC encryption in Jabber, don’t use ICQ “
According to the statistics, the most valuable types of information that are popular on the black market are:
- Annual accounting balances and financial reports;
- Project plans and strategies of the company for several years;
- Intellectual property and innovations used for successful business;
- Customers databases and partners’ contacts (CRM);
- Employees databases (Intranet systems);
- Credentials to corporate e-mails and personal e-mails of employees;
- Internal network infrastructure and its specifics.
It is obvious that C-Level execs and HR managers's email addresses are also often the easiest ones to obtain, so they become an easy target for spear-phishing attacks and are the first people that need high-quality security awareness training. System admins are more trained to spot and delete spam and phishing, but they sure are a target too!
Hat Tip to the Security Affairs Blog
