Humanitarian Aid Organisations Being Targeted By Phishing Scam

It has been revealed that a newly discovered phishing campaign is targeting humanitarian aid organisations and using North Korean political topics as bait to lure victims into opening malicious Microsoft Word documents. Based on the names of the malicious documents used in the attacks, McAfee analysts have named this Operation Honeybee. IT Security Experts commented below.

Javvad Malik, Security Advocate at AlienVault:

Phishing remains a popular attack vector as there remains a chance that someone will click on a link in error. This is particularly true during a major event or disaster where interest in a particular topic is high.

It is therefore important to have several controls in place to defend against such attacks.

Firstly, users should be trained, or make themselves familiar with knowing how to spot phishing attacks. This can include looking out for poor grammar and spelling, checking where the email has originated from, and whether email is the usual way of communication.

If a user does fall victim to a scam, enterprises should have threat detection capabilities that can notify when an account has been compromised, new devices added to the network, or strange outbound traffic occurs.

Finally companies should have a response plan in place. That way if a user does fall victim to a phishing scam, any malware infection, or compromised credentials can be isolated and contained so as not to adversely impact the organisation.

Paul Norris, Senior Systems Engineer for EMEA at Tripwire:

“Phishing campaigns are extremely popular and aim to dupe people into giving away personal and financial information, with hackers using sophisticated tactics to extract the critical information. This is why individuals should be wary of all links and attachments sent to them. Always be cautious and if the link looks suspicious then avoid interacting. Organisations should take a proactive step towards phishing attacks against their own domains by using companies that offer anti-phishing services. Furthermore, people can help avoid future attacks is by educating themselves about the risks and consequences of clicking unknown links and attachments as hackers succeed in preying on human naivety.”