Seems like a social engineering type attack again relying on human ignorance and stupidity. Based around some kind of malware reporting back to a central repository.

Remember kids if a deal is too good to be true…it isn’t.

Hackers stole information from the U.S. Department of Transportation and several U.S. companies by seducing employees with fake job-listings on advertisements and e-mail, a computer security firm said.

The victims include consulting firm Booz Allen, computer services company Unisys Corp, computer maker Hewlett- Packard Co and satellite network provider Hughes Network Systems, a unit of Hughes Communications Inc, said Mel Morris, chief executive of British Internet security provider Prevx Ltd.

Of the list, only Unisys acknowledged that viruses had been detected and removed from two PCs, saying no information had been leaked. A Department of Transportation spokeswoman said the agency could not find any indication of a breach and a spokeswoman for Hughes said she was unaware of any breaches.

They were fairly selective about their targets which meant they stayed under the radar for some time.

Prevx said the malware it identified uses a program named NTOS.exe that probes PCs for confidential data, then sends it to a Web site hosted on Yahoo Inc. That site’s owner is likely unaware it is being used by hackers, Morris said.

He believes the hackers have set up several “sister” Web sites that are collecting similar data from other squadrons of malware. It was not clear whether the hackers used any information stolen from more than 1,000 PCs.

The hackers only targeted a limited group of computers, which kept traffic down and allowed them to stay under the radar of security police, who tend to identify threats when activity reaches a certain level.

The fact is off the shelf AV solutions CANNOT detect custom malware, this has been known about for a long time but it’s never really sunken in to the brains of the people in charge.

A little bit of programming and a little bit of imagination and most companies can still be owned with a custom trojan.

Source: Reuters