‘Attractive’ Women Were Actually Hackers

It looks like some hackers managed to snag Syrian opposition fighters’ strategic battle plans in a rather old fashioned manner – by making use of “attractive” female Skype avatars in order to lure potential victims. The attacks happened some time between November 2013 and January last year, and as a result of this sting? A bunch of strategic information was stolen, according to cybersecurity company FireEye.

FireEye claims that the strategic information which was stolen include detailed military plans that outlined attack strategies, in addition to the political structure of the opposition,not to mention identification cards of refugees who had made their way to Turkey.

How did the attacks begin? Well, a Skype user using a female persona would begin to start a conversation with a previously identified male opposition fighter. The hacker who poses behind such an avatar would then try to ask just what kind of device is being used by the victim, using their fake female wiles to do so, before sending the corresponding malware. Sounds underhanded, but it apparently works. Eventually, the theft amounted to approximately 7.7GB of stolen data, 31,107 Skype conversations, 12,356 contacts and close to a quarter of a million messages. Talk about mixing it up by using new technology alongside the age old strategy of the law of attraction!

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: Skype