Trojan-laden E-Mails Target Law Firm

Gipson Hoffman & Pancione, a law firm based in California and representing Solid Oak Software, a US company, reported on January 13, 2010 that cyber attacks have recently targeted it. The Wall Street Journal reported this on January 13, 2010.

It is learnt that Solid Oak Software is the maker of CYBERsitter Anti-Spam, which are the Windows programs to make obnoxious and harmful material on the Internet inaccessible to kids. Also according to an allegation by the company, the 'Green Dam' monitoring software of China stole the CYBERsitter's code that resulted in a considerable issue of copyright in 2009.

In the meantime, on January 11, 2010, attorneys at the Gipson law firm stated that they started getting Trojan-laced e-mails that were designed to deceive them into clicking on file attachments infected with malware. AFP reported this on January 13, 2010.

Gipson, via a press release, stated that Trojan-laced e-mails were specifically crafted for intercepting data that was stored on the computer, which the e-mails targeted. And for that, according to the firm, the Trojan gave the e-mail sender secret and unauthorized admission to the infected PC or to the firm's servers.

Says lawyer Gregory Fayer at Gipson Hoffman & Pancione, the trojans that attacked his firm were found located on servers in China. Actually, on tracing the e-mail traffic, it was discovered that it passed through ISPs in China, reported CNet News on January 13, 2010.

Furthermore, Fayer stated that the e-mail assault was more advanced in comparison to the one which emanated from China during June 2009 and targeted Solid Oak.

According to the law firm, the US FBI is probing into the assaults against the law firm, while the Intelligence Committee of the US House of Representatives has also been informed.

Andrew Bridges, attorney at an US-based global law firm 'Winston & Strawn' said that it was hard to sue an overseas government like China that was normally unaffected with civil claims, as per the news published by informationweek.com on January 14, 2010.

Incidentally, this has followed Google's recent denunciation of a Chinese online assault against its own infrastructure alongwith a minimum of 20 other firms. Google, since then, is seriously thinking of retreating from the Asian market.

Related article: Trojans to Target VoIP in 2006

» SPAMfighter News - 1/25/2010