You may remember reports of a spies infiltrating Canadian government and U.S. government computers using carefully crafted highly targeted phishing emails.   Now the French government has been compromised.  Patrick Pailloux , the executive director of France’s ANSSI (National Security Agency Information Systems), has identified this attack on the French Finance Ministry as espionage.

In what is becoming an all-too familiar scenario, highly sophisticated perpetrators sent carefully crafted emails with highly targeted content and calls to action to a select group of government officials.  Like all phishing schemes, this one appealed to the recipients’ desires, fears and curiosity to get the recipients to act.  

The French government confirms that at least 150 machines were infected with malware.  This malware surreptitiously sent files to computers, suspected to be  in China.  The compromised files concerned the G-20.  In response, the French government has been forced to shut down compromised systems.   

What can you do to protect yourself?  How can you know if an email is real?

real obama email

Know who.  No doubt.  Use eMail ID.