A tremendously huge trojan horse has been reported to be now circling Sydney, Australia, targeting various industries and establishments such as the Royal Randwick Racecourse, CNS or Channel 9, the History Department in the Sydney University and even the Sydney Opera House.
The Turkish Consulate was also targeted, as well as the Land Command of the Army Headquarters but due to much higher security enforced in the perimeters, the trojan horse failed to manifest its payload in these areas. At the Army however, the trojan horse was able to penetrate the gateway but further inspection revealed and blocked some five malicious embedded components dropped from the trojan package before they can cause damage.
This report illustrates the same weakest link in security – human gullability. The size of the trojan package was gigantic and no stealth mechanism was used, and yet there was no suspicion attached to the package – entry was granted successfully. It was like merely a simple question of “Can I enter?”, and then bingo – Enter, you can (without questions asked!). As is the usual observation, some simple and yet effective social engineering ploys indeed played a big part in these targeted security breaches.
