Arabic news station hit by phishing attack

Spear phishing targets a very specific group of people

What is described as "a prominent Arab media outlet" was hit by a spear phishing attack earlier in the year, security experts told vnunet.com today.

UK security firm Sophos, which detected the threat, said that the attack was targeted solely at the unnamed news organisation's users. It is not known from where the attack originated.

The emails claimed to link to new pictures of Osama Bin Laden, but in fact pushed victims to a site hosting a Trojan horse.

Once installed the Trojan allowed the remote hackers complete control of the news organisation's computer and could have given access rights to the company's server.

"Obviously we cannot name which organisation this was," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"But this appears to be a highly targeted attack that we have not seen elsewhere. Luckily the journalists are very switched on and and spotted it for what it was."

So-called spear phishing differs from standard phishing attacks in that it targets a very specific group of people, usually members of a particular company or mailing list. Typically the social engineering technique used is also highly specific.

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