Mashable has posted a video describing the latest twist on the Sykipot targeted attack.

As an added layer of IT  defense, the U.S. Government has adopted smart cards control access to data systems.  In this attack, the hackers attack the users by sending spearphishing emails that install malware which hijacks the smart cards.  Once activated, the malware by-passes the smart card protection.

The technical details are reported by AlienVault.  AlienVault concludes:

As defenses get better, attackers will continue to change their tactics to adapt, and as seen here, will hijack the very systems designed to provide more security, if necessary. An interesting by-product of this malware’s necessity of having the card physically present is that attackers can only leverage it for secure authentication to target systems, during times that the user them is physically present at the workstation, making unauthorized activity that much more difficult to discern from legitimate usage. Although smart cards are designed to provide a two factor system of ‘chip and pin’, again we see that true two-factor authentication is not possible without a physical component that is not accessible digitally.

Employees must be empowered to defend against cyberattacks. When the cyberattacks target the human, the human must be hardened. A tool that hardens the human  is available now from Iconix. That tool is SP Guard from Iconix.

SP Guard Inbox

SP Guard provides the recipient with three confirmations that a message is real:

  1. List View. There is an integrity indicator in the list view of the email client.
  2. Message. The open message has a further indicator of authenticity.
  3. Mouseover. Mousing over the authentication indicator in the message prompts the display of a certificate that further identifies the sender.

SP Guard now offers a fraud filtering enhancement.  This additional protection is becoming increasingly important given the latest generation of highly targeted spear-phishing emails which are so well crafted that users cannot tell real from fake.

SP Guard is available now from Iconix.  For further information, contact us at 408-727-6342, ext 3 or use our online form.