$140 Billion Spearphishing Attack
Yesterday, April 23, the twitter account of the AP wire service was compromised. The perpetrators sent out a fake tweet from the real AP account saying that the President had been injured in a bombing at the White House. There was no bombing. Jay Carney Confirms President is Fine This is the tweet that cost $140 billion in lost stock market value. How could this have happened? It happened because a spearphishing email tricked an employee of AP into compromising the credentials to AP's twitter account. With the credentials in hand, the attackers were free to use the twitter [...]