The Sport of Spear Phishing: A Popular Sporting Event to Some, A Life Altering Scam to Others

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Introduction

Cyber crime is something that has become part of today’s cyberspace culture and it is a steadily growing threat on the rise. Trusteer” a Boston-based computer security company recently published a report titled “Measuring the Effectiveness of In-the-Wild Phishing Attacks”. Based on Trusteer’s calculations they concluded that the loss per every successfully compromised online banking account is approximately $2,000 which is equivalent to $9.4M per year per each one million customers. These numbers specifically address financial damages caused by the Computer-Based Crime methodology known as “Spear Phishing”.

This cyber crime is a security threat that not only affects businesses, but also everyone that has access to the World Wide Web whether it is via computer, laptop, smart phone or notepad. In order to achieve a successful breach, criminal masterminds often attempt to illegally gain access to the business through multiple targets while combining them with vulnerability tools via web access, e-mail, and even social engineering. In the recent breach to the retail store Target Inc. it was discovered that over 110 million consumers’ credit cards and personal information were exposed to attackers. Several months earlier, programs with malware-laced email phishing codes were sent to Target employees via an HVAC firm which could have been the culprit that infected Target’s point-of-sale systems. According to Fox Business, the attackers used the information gathered and gained access to additional network resources which led to the $200M breach and left the cyber door wide open to future infiltration.

Rest assured that there are many other cyber crime attack methods that can be employed but, this paper will specifically a...

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