First published: 01st April 2015
Today is April Fool's Day, so can you recognise which of the following claims, based on information security news in the last year, is fake?
- Bank sends email with dodgy phishing attachment
- Politician uses personal email account for Government business
- Dodgy email used to steal US$65,000 from Politician
- Critical Vulnerability discovered after 22 years
- Police website hosts phishing redirects
- Police consider updating to 1990's technology
- Celebrity photos replaced by tax returns
- Millions rely on four overworked volunteers for security
The answer will be revealed here tomorrow.
Updated: 02nd April 2015
And the Answer Is...
If you answered "none", well done, none of the claims were false. These are the related news stories:
- Bank sends email with dodgy phishing attachment: HSBC in Hong Kong notifies customers of payments using an email that directs users to an attached unverifiable webpage which asks for a password - classic phishing techniques.
- Politician uses personal email account for Government business: Hilary Clinton used her personal email account when working as the USA's top diplomat.
- Dodgy email used to steal US$65,000 from Politician: Hong Kong Legislative Council Member and former Secretary for Security Regina Ip believed a fake email and criminals used information obtained to trick her bank into a US$65,000 transfer.
- Critical Vulnerability discovered after 22 years: The Shellshock vulnerability lay unrecognised in many unix variants.
- Police website hosts phishing redirects: The website of a small Thai Police Station hosted a phishing page trying to steal online banking credentials.
- Police consider updating to 1990's technology: Hong Kong Police evaluate PDAs for issuing parking tickets.
- Celebrity photos replaced by tax returns: Malicious software spread in fake tax emails. It used to be that the easy way to get a victim to click on a dodgy attachment was to offer celebrity photos.
- Millions rely on four overworked volunteers for security: The Heartbleed vulnerability revealed that the widely-used OpenSSL software was maintained by just four volunteers.
Aprils Fools Day is a bit of fun, but remember, it is possible to be a fool any day of the year. And to those who answered "42", do you have any more pan-galactic gargleblasters?
