Staff are still falling for phishing scams Attack.Phishing , with social media friend requests and emails pretending to come from Attack.Phishing the HR department among the ones most likely to fool Attack.Phishing workers into handing over usernames and passwords . Phishing scams Attack.Phishing aim to trick Attack.Phishing staff into handing over data -- normally usernames and passwords -- by posing as Attack.Phishing legitimate email . It 's a technique used by the lowliest criminals as part of ransomware campaigns , right up to state-backed hackers because it continues to be such an effective method . In a review of 100 simulated attack campaigns for 48 of its clients , accounting for almost a million individual users , security company MWR Infosecurity found that sending Attack.Phishing a bogus friend request was the best way to get someone to click on a link -- even when the email was being sent Attack.Phishing to a work email address . Almost a quarter of users clicked the link to be taken through to a fake login screen , with more than half going on to provide a username and password , and four out of five then going on to download a file . A spoof email claiming to be Attack.Phishing from the HR department referring to the appraisal system was also very effective : nearly one in five clicked the link , and three-quarters provided more credentials , with a similar percentage going on to download a file . Some might argue that gaining access Attack.Databreach to a staff email account is of limited use , but the security company argues that this is a handy for an assault . A hacker could dump Attack.Databreach entire mailboxes , access Attack.Databreach file shares , run programs on the compromised user 's device , and access multiple systems , warned MWR InfoSecurity . Even basic security controls , such as two-factor authentication or disabling file and SharePoint remote access , could reduce the risk . The company also reported bad news about the passwords that users handed over : while over 60 percent of passwords were found to have a length of 8 to 10 characters -- the mandatory minimum for many organizations -- the company argued that this illustrates how users stick to minimum security requirements . A third of the passwords consisted of an upper-case first letter , a series of lower-case letters , and then numbers with no symbols . It also found that 13.6 percent of passwords ended with four numbers in the range of 1940 to 2040 . Of those , nearly half ended in 2016 , which means one-in-twenty of all passwords end with the year in which they were created .

Northrop Grumman has admitted one of its internal portals was broken into , exposing Attack.Databreach employees ' sensitive tax records to miscreants . In a letter [ PDF ] to workers and the California Attorney General 's office , the aerospace contractor said that between April 18 , 2016 and March 29 , 2017 , crooks infiltrated the website , allowing them to access Attack.Databreach staffers ' W-2 paperwork for the 2016 tax year . These W-2 forms can be used by identity thieves to claim tax rebates owed to employees , allowing the crims to pocket victims ' money . The corp sent out its warning letters on April 18 , the last day to file 2016 tax returns . `` The personal information that may have been accessed Attack.Databreach includes your name , address , work email address , work phone number , Social Security number , employer identification number , and wage and tax information , as well as any personal phone number , personal email address , or answers to customized security questions that you may have entered on the W-2 online portal , '' the contractor told its employees . The Stealth Bomber maker says it will provide all of the exposed workers with three years of free identity-theft monitoring services . Northrop Grumman has also disabled access to the W-2 portal through any method other than its internal single sign-on tool . The aerospace giant said it farmed out its tax portal to Equifax Workforce Solutions , which was working with the defense giant to get to the bottom of the intrusion . `` Promptly after confirming the incident , we worked with Equifax to determine the details of the issue , '' Northrop told its teams . `` Northrop Grumman and Equifax are coordinating with law enforcement authorities to assist them in their investigation of recent incidents Attack.Databreach involving unauthorized actors gaining access Attack.Databreach to individuals ’ personal information through the W-2 online portal . '' According to Equifax , the portal was accessed Attack.Databreach not by hackers but by someone using stolen login details . `` We are investigating alleged unauthorized access Attack.Databreach to our online portal where a person or persons using stolen credentials accessed Attack.Databreach W-2 information of a limited number of individuals , '' an Equifax spokesperson told El Reg on Monday . `` Based on the investigation to date , Equifax has no reason to believe that its systems were compromised Attack.Databreach or that it was the source of the information used to gain access Attack.Databreach to the online portal . ''

A massive phishing campaign Attack.Phishing took place today , but Google 's security staff was on hand and shut down the attacker 's efforts within an hour after users first reported the problem on Reddit . According to multiple reports on Twitter , the attacks Attack.Phishing first hit Attack.Phishing journalists , businesses , and universities , but later spread to many other users as well . The attack itself was quite clever if we can say so ourselves . Victims received Attack.Phishing a legitimate ( non-spoofed ) email from one of their friends , that asked them to click on a button to receive access to a Google Docs document . If users clicked the button , they were redirected to the real Google account selection screen , where a fake app titled Attack.Phishing `` Google Docs '' ( not the real one ) asked the user 's permission to authorize it to access the shared document . In reality , the app only wanted access to the user 's Gmail inbox and contact list . After gaining access Attack.Databreach to these details , the fake app copied the user 's contact list and sent Attack.Phishing a copy of itself to the new set of targets , spreading itself to more and more targets . The email was actually sent Attack.Phishing to `` hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh @ mailinator.com , '' with the user 's email address added as BCC . Following the incident , Mailinator intervened and blocked any new emails from arriving into that inbox . Because of this self-replicating feature , the phishing attack Attack.Phishing spread like wildfire in a few minutes , just like the old Samy worm that devasted MySpace over a decade ago . Fortunately , one Google staff member was visting the /r/Google Reddit thread , and was able to spot a trending topic detailing the phishing campaign Attack.Phishing . The Google engineer forwarded the Reddit thread to the right person , and within an hour after users first complained about the issue , Google had already disabled the fake app 's ability to access the Google OAuth screen . Later on , as engineers had more time to investigate the issue , Google issued the following statement : We have taken action to protect users against an email impersonating Attack.Phishing Google Docs & have disabled offending accounts . We ’ ve removed the fake pages , pushed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability updates through Safe Browsing , and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing Attack.Phishing from happening again . We encourage users to report phishing emails in Gmail . There are no reports that malware was deployed in the phishing attack Attack.Phishing . Cloudflare was also quick to take down all the domains associated with the phishing attack Attack.Phishing . Users that clicked on the button inside the phishing email can go to the https : //myaccount.google.com/permissions page and see if they granted the app permission to access their account . The real Google Docs is n't listed in this section , as it does not need permissions , being an official Google property .