Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

Image by yusuf kazancı from Pixabay

What’s Old is New

Here’s another attack fresh from the pages of Homer’s Iliad. You know the story of the ten-year conflict between early Greek kingdoms and the Anatolian city of Troy. Troy counted on the win when the Greeks headed back to their home. From the Trojans’ perspective, the proof was a giant wooden horse left as a tribute gift for Athena. They rolled it into the city — big mistake.

Late in the night, the wooden horse disgorged several Greek soldiers who opened the defending city gates, allowing the Greek army to launch a fatal campaign. This story has been repeated often as lessons related to attacks in modern-day cyberspace, identified as trojan horse software — something innocuous on the surface containing a deadly payload. The old tricks are the best!

Modern Application

Fast forward a couple of millennia, and attackers are sending smartwatches as gifts to U.S. military personnel to test their knowledge of history. Article on CNN: https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/06/23/politics/navy-smartwatches-malware/index.html

The review appears to suggest the attackers baked in nasty computer viruses to access remotely to compromise an individual’s smartphone, aka the personal digital appendix everyone carries. It is a jump to the left or right to see what’s in the app store on the associated PC, which can be readily compromised. In the criminal’s spare time, they can browse interesting corporate data remotely. An enterprising criminal takes it a step further by giving free smartwatches to underpaid junior officers in any branch of service, the ones doing the grunt work for the higher-ups. That way, these cyber thieves can hunt for military secrets and rob personal checking/savings accounts.

Free With Cyber Strings

A clever attack because everyone loves free stuff, even if they should question who sent it. What a surprise when someone learns it’s from a subversive foreign power looking to trade a nice shiny smartwatch for detailed blueprints of U.S. military’s fifth-generation fighter plane upgrade. Of course, the note in the box said from an Anonymous Admirer.