Durban, South Africa, 8 July 2013

Automated Targeted Attacks

Alexandru Catalin Cosoi,Chief Security Strategist,

Bitdefender acosoi@bitdefender.com

ITU Workshop on “Countering and Combating Spam”

(Durban, South Africa, 8 July 2013)

Spam Breakdown by Type

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Attachments Breakdown by Type

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MiniDuke attack

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Antispam Tech Maturity

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Questions

What is your name or nickname?What are your interests?Who do you work for?Who are your friends/colleagues?What is you job title? Who is you manager/CEO/director?Who are your family members?Are you married? With whom?

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Our Online Identity

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Google Search

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123people.com search

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Pipl.com search

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After 3 searches

Name: Alexandru Catalin CosoiCompany: BitdefenderJob Title: Chief Security StrategistEmail: acosoi@bitdefender.comSocial media accounts: all, including LinkedIn profile and foursquare checkinsWife’s email address

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Example

Dear Alexandru Cosoi,

We tried contacting your wife Carmen in regard to participation to the 19th Annual Conference of [whatever]. Is [wife’s email] her correct email address?

Can you please forward the attached PDF with the official invite?

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Conclusions

Social engineering works. Social engineering can be automated We need to understand the addiction to social networks and the fact that users will post information about themselves onlineEducation can work. It’s our duty to educate both users and employees about social engineering and how their own data can turn against them.

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More Conclusions

Spam content will become personal and uniqueContent filtering technologies will start having a hard time detecting all samplesUsers might consider antispam filters when detecting highly social engineered spam messages

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Questions?

www.bitdefender.comacosoi@bitdefender.com

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