{"id":3134,"date":"2011-06-13T12:50:08","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T11:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/?p=3134"},"modified":"2015-09-09T19:37:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:37:12","slug":"imf-international-monetary-fund-suffer-major-breach-in-sophisticated-cyberattack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2011\/06\/imf-international-monetary-fund-suffer-major-breach-in-sophisticated-cyberattack\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF (International Monetary Fund) Suffer Major Breach In Sophisticated Cyberattack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oh dear, another big organization has fallen foul to the whole RSA SecurID<\/a> hack – it seems that way anyway. In combination with a Spear Phishing<\/a> attack (similar to the one carried out on high level US officials via Gmail<\/a> recently) hackers have busted the IMF wide open.<\/p>\n

It seems to be a very targeted attack and most likely uses multiple attack vectors rolled into one. The IMF has had to severe network connections with the World Bank as a precaution against further damage. Although they say it’s not linked to RSA SecurID – how can we be sure really?<\/p>\n

The main problem with this situation? The IMF hold some EXTREMELY sensitive information about all kinds of nations and their economies.<\/p>\n

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reportedly become the target of a concerted hack attack.<\/p>\n

The resulting breach was severe enough for the economic development agency to temporarily suspend network connections with the World Bank, as a precaution. The link was quickly restored.<\/p>\n

According to internal emails leaked to Bloomberg the precautionary disconnection followed the detection of “suspicious file transfers”. “[A] subsequent investigation established that a Fund desktop computer had been compromised and used to access some Fund systems. At this point, we have no reason to believe that any personal information was sought for fraud purposes.”<\/p>\n

The IMF reported told staff on or around 8 June that it planned to replace RSA SecurID tokens used for remote authentication. RSA last week publicly offered to replace two factor authentication token after defence contractor Lockheed Martin said it had come under attack from hackers using information gleaned from an earlier high-profile attack on RSA back in March.<\/p>\n

However an IMF staffer told the New York Times that the attack on its systems is not linked to the earlier RSA breach. Unconfirmed reports suggest that the IMF was the target of a spear phishing attack designed to plant malware inside its systems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the info about it not being linked to RSA SecurID<\/a> comes from someone who actually works at the IMF, so it should be fairly legitimate info.<\/p>\n

As per usual, in these kinds of situations – the IMF isn’t really saying a whole lot about what’s going on – unsurprisingly so. What we do know though is a senior official has stated that it was a “very major breach”.<\/p>\n

It wouldn’t surprise me as well if they did get owned by a very accurate, targeted and personalized phishing<\/a> attack.<\/p>\n