Targeted Attack

Emails can be sent using any “from” email address so it’s possible for someone to send me an email that appears to come from (e.g.) Joe and from a cobourginternet.com address that doesn’t exist.

In most cases, they will guess the name of the person or use a generic name like “reception”.

If they work at it, they can find out the name of a worker at your company and use their name.

So now you are getting an email from someone you know at a legitimate looking address.

There are security measures (DKIM) that are now more common to make sure that the email does in fact come from the address it claims to be from and these are implemented on all Cobourg Internet sites as well as major email suppliers like Gmail and Yahoo.


(But maybe the clever Chinese can spoof this too!) You might even reply to the sender by email saying “Did you send this – is it OK to open?” They reply saying “yes”.

Then once an innocent looking document is opened, you have a hidden program on your computer that can “have its way with you”! It will likely steal personal data and send all your important files back to China.

It may be months before you find out. You might discover it over coffee when you ask the “sender” “Why did you send me that?” Their blank look and denial tells you you’ve been hacked.

The best defense here is to be aware and be careful plus don’t belong to a big corporation or a government agency. These hackers don’t spend much effort chasing the little guys.

Hopefully the DKIM measures will help too. It used to be that hackers wanted to damage your computer by erasing files or making them inaccessible.

But now they focus on getting your money. There are still a few of the old type but most anti-virus programs catch them.

Where do hackers come from? The largest number come from China (30%), the next biggest group are from Romania (28%) and number three is the U.S.(18%).
These numbers are for the targeted attacks.