Hackers are becoming so sophisticated with their attacks that they are mining Facebook profiles for personal information that could help them steal sensitive data.
Security expert Michel Juneau-Katsuya says a Department of National Defence employee told investigators he received an email from someone pretending to be a co-worker who said he had seen the employee at his daughter's soccer game over the weekend. The hacker claimed to have been added to the employee's work team, which was assembling sensitive information, and asked for a copy of the work done so far.
The personal information came from pictures the DND staffer had posted to Facebook. The staffer alerted department officials.
"Breaches will happen because of human beings getting involved somewhere," said Juneau-Katsuya, chief executive of the Northgate Group security firm and a former senior intelligence officer for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
"Whether that's willingly, unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously. Whether they lost or forgot something or they simply held open the door for somebody. There is a human factor in it."
Juneau-Katsuya said international espionage is reaching record levels as governments move away from costly military confrontations in favour of electronic attacks and computer data theft - and they are picking on average people to get what they want.
Speaking at the release of the 2011 Telus-Rotman IT Security Study, Juneau-Katsuya said more than 10 times more spy activity goes on today than at the peak of the Cold War.
"All of the spy activities can now be done remotely. It's less expensive because you don't have to move your assets abroad," he said.
The security expert said Canada is increasingly being targeted because of its lack of a national cyber-security strategy, coupled with rising information breaches being perpetrated by government insiders. Its economic health is another factor as cashtrapped nations, and even private investors, scramble for any advantage to safeguard their investments. That includes hacking into government servers to determine certain policy directions. A January 2001 attack on the federal government was aimed at getting information on Saskatchewan's potash industry. Foreign hackers masqueraded online as an aboriginal group to gain access to the Finance Department and Treasury Board networks.
Comments
Post has no comments.