Targetted Trojans
Interesting scandal in Israel and a similar series of attacks in the UK. We have seen mass mailed trojans that employ infected PCs mainly for low level use such as SMTP relays.

What we see now is targetted trojans. Software that attacks Financial companies, software that looks for and only infects conputers designing aircraft. High end attacks aimed at high end computers. The UK's National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre says that it is seeing attacks on political and economic targets. Report here. The source seems to be the Far East.

Related story: U.K. Incidents Show Shift to Targeted Attacks.


Good coverage on the Israeli story from MSNBC
Israel espionage case points to new Net threat and Computerworld.


The main problem with these attacks is that your usual anti-virus software will not detect the trojan as the AV company will not have seen it. The software and the delivery has been customised just for you! The Israeli Trojan (called 'Rona') was sent to the target on a CD, pretending to be a business proposal. Anyone running Windows would have Rona installed.
- posted @ Tuesday, June 21, 2005