Execs Scammed on Internet Wild West
A lot of executives may be losing confidential information to Internet thieves, without even realizing it.
Due to the widespread availability of specific information about individuals, particularly on social networking Web sites, sophisticated Internet scammers are able to target executives’ computers and send them seemingly legitimate personalized e-mail messages that call for a response. Those who take this inviting bait probably won’t notice anything is wrong, even after the scammers implant secret spying programs that steal confidential information typed in by legitimate users, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.).
One such unsuspecting victim was Scott Foernsler, who is in charge of global sales at an an Atlanta-based mobile messaging and marketing company, the newspaper explains in a page-one article today. When he responded to a seemingly legitimate e-mail complaint from the “Better Business Bureau,” clicking on a link as requested, a scammer who had targeted him by impersonating the well-known agency scored.
“By clicking on the bogus complaint link, he had downloaded software that was sending anything he then inputted online–such as passwords, credit-card numbers, usernames, banking information and personal browsing–to a Web site controlled by a criminal,” the article recounts.
But not until Foernsler was contacted by an Internet security company did he realize that he had a problem. At that point, he had the spyware removed and immediately changed all his passwords and usernames. However, he has no idea what was taken in the meantime.
Those who conduct such schemes often do so with virtual impunity, says Joe Stewart of SecureWorks Inc., the company that alerted Foernsler to the scam. “It’s like the Old West when there was very little law enforcement for a large territory.”
“We are in an electronic arms race,” says Shawn Henry, deputy assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation cyber-crime division. “Every time our technology catches up … the bad guys come up with another way to get in.”
