Hackers Score Big by Thinking Small
A recent computer security breach that left 40 million credit cards vulnerable to fraud shows how online criminals are scoring big by thinking small, experts said on Monday. ADVERTISEMENT
Cybercriminals are increasingly crafting more focused attacks with a potential for profit as they target one or two companies at a time, rather than blasting out Internet virus attacks across the globe, according to security experts.
The payoffs can be enormous. MasterCard International said on Friday that an outsider gained access to as many as 40 million credit and debit cards from CardSystems Solutions Inc., a payment processor. A MasterCard spokeswoman said on Monday that the attacker had placed a malicious computer script on CardSystems computers.
In Israel, police are investigating a massive case of industrial espionage that used a “Trojan horse” computer program to copy confidential information from some of the country’s top businesses.
Security vendors say such attacks are increasingly common.
“We have seen several examples of targeted, manually crafted Trojans that people write and implement for a very small number of companies,” said Aladdin Security Vice President Shimon Gruper.
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