Campaign Successfully Targets Email of High-level US Officials

The UK’s The Register reports that, “A targeted campaign to collect Gmail passwords from senior US government officials and military personnel is showing no signs of letting up more than two months after Google first warned it had already snared hundreds of victims.

According to independent security researcher Mila Parkour, the same attackers sent a new round of highly targeted spear phishing emails as recently as last week that attempted to trick government workers into revealing credentials for their personal Gmail accounts. As was the case in early June the attackers' goal is to monitor the private email of people working in sensitive government and military positions.

“I am posting this only to highlight the fact that once compromises happen and are covered in the news, they do not disappear and attackers don't give up or stop,” Parkour wrote in a blog post published on Thursday. “They continue their business as usual.”

The spear phishers have stalked some of their previous victims for more almost a year and in some cases sent the victims emails designed to originate from colleagues in hopes of getting responses that detailed the targets' schedules, contacts, and job responsibilities.”