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Case Study : The Mask

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Case Study: “The Mask” Stephen Doherty, a researcher and blogger for the Symantec Corporation, provides a case study that proves targeted attacks are growing and evolving. His case study entitled, “The Mask,” is a cyber-espionage group established in 2007 to hack, monitor and exfiltrate data from infected targets. Their method of breach uses intense spear phishing to lure the victims in using deceiving emails. In addition, The Mask coincidently enough specializes in tools that target Spanish speakers. The Mask is still present today, filled with professional hackers with an exuberant amount of resources. When targeting the victim, The Mask typically will send out an email to a recipient with what looks like legitimate PDF or Microsoft Word documents. However, this malware includes a Remote Access Trojan. This means that once the recipient opens the file, The Mask has full remote access to his or her computer. Furthermore, this tool provides full access to Word documents, encrypted files, mobile backup files and email archives, which then all the information is easily exfiltrated. Cyber-espionage is still expanding and their targets are increasingly becoming more diverse. The Mask is just one example of the accredited cyber groups with sophisticated capabilities, defense, and special tools to simply hack whomever they want. Case Study: Criminals Hit the ATM Jackpot In this case, cybercriminals discovered a new method called, Ploutus, a new way to steal money from an

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