It seems hacking is all the rage these days. After the Lulz boat kicked up a storm at Sony and the NHS, someone somewhere has took things a step further, giving the global economy a wobble after aiming a cyber attack at the International Monetary Fund. In a separate incident game developers Codemasters have also been hit in a major attack which is said to have compromised tens of thousands of personal accounts.
Whoever hit Codemasters will be kicking themselves; what should be major news will most likely be overshadowed by the IMF attack which was severe enough for the economic development agency to temporarily suspend network connections with the World Bank. In other words, for a little time, the entire world economy ground to a halt.
Leaked internal emails from the IMF describe “suspicious file transfers.” And a "subsequent investigation which established that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems." The emails also stated that there is "no reason to believe that any personal information was sought for fraud purposes.”
Something needs to be done ASAP before a couple of frustrated nerds in knitted jumpers destroy the world with a laptop. But how do we stop the hackers? David Beesley, managing director of security consultancy Network Defence said that “Spear phishing [the type of attack thought to be used in the IMF incident] is difficult to defend against because it primarily targets users not PCs, and the information that attackers can gather from social networking sites makes the phishing emails look very convincing. As we've seen, it makes these attacks effective against any size of organisation.”
According to Beesley,"Firms need to use a mix of user education and layered security solutions to defend themselves. Employees should be aware that even plausible-looking emails should be treated with suspicion, and IT teams should look at their AV and anti-spam solutions to try and stop malware propagating."