Last week North Korea claimed that it carried out its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-14 and US officials believe the country may have fired a brand-new missile that has not been seen before.
No we haven’t turned into a political media outlet, but hackers have taken interest into the North Korean Missile Program and launched a email phishing attack which has the ability to steal your personal data and hijack your computer system(s). So the main gist of the email phishing attack is the use of current affairs. The attackers use eye-catching news reports to trick victims into clicking on the emails which contain harmful Malware.
It is nothing that we haven’t seen or heard before but it goes to show that the cyber attackers are continuing to attack on a daily/weekly basis using current affairs/trending news to entice their victims to open emails and their attachments.
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On this particular occasion, an unknown Remote Access Trojan (RAT) hides in an email about the latest North Korean Missile intercontinental ballistic missile launch. The hackers use an email attachment as the initial infection vector to deliver the Trojan through an executable file, which when opened displays an Microsoft Office document. However, the content is a straight copy and paste job from by South Korean Yonhap News Agency (July 3rd 2017).
The malware is designed to steal files, record keystrokes, perform screenshots, get the system information, including hostname, IP address, username, OS version and installed software, as well as execute malicious code on the infected computer.
As usual we urge clients to exercise caution when deciding to open emails, despite their enticing and often ‘click-bait’ headlines. If possible, do a Google search about the said topic before clicking on any links – especially links coming from untrusted websites. As well as that, always keep your antivirus versions up to date and try not to keep update downloads pending for too long.
About IntelliTeK Pty Ltd
IntelliTeK is a managed IT services company in Sydney, Australia. With major vendor relationships and accreditation’s from the worlds leading IT companies including WatchGuard, Microsoft, Trend Micro and Amazon Web Services, IntelliTeK have kept clients happy since 2007.
IntelliTeK are always up to date with the latest cloud backup solutions which is why we only partner with the best in the industry. If your company isn’t fully equipped to fend off cyber criminals, then get in touch with us so we can discuss your options. Call us on 1300 768 779, email us at info@intellitek.com.au, fill out the web form, or have a Live Chat with us below.