'CEO fraud' is increasing, top management targeted by hackers

A strong numerical development of traditional cybercrime and data breach. An increase in the 'CEO fraud', that is the fraud to the CEO, with hackers who will increasingly target the top management of companies to steal large sums of money. These are the forecasts of cyber attacks for 2020 by Gabriele Faggioli, head of the Security and Privacy Observatory of the Polytechnic of Milan and CEO of P41-Partners4Innovation.

"The trends are fairly tracked - he explains to ANSA - malware and phishing will continue to attack users also because they are the easiest attacks to carry out. And there is an increase in the number of cases for 'Ceo freud' attacks , social engineering operations, manipulations, thanks to which hackers are able to pretend to be people and even get substantial transfers. It is a phenomenon in sharp growth and the attacks are increasingly sophisticated ". The case of Maire Tecnimont in India is emblematic. A few months ago a group of Chinese scammers stole the equivalent of 16 million euros from the division with a series of e-mails to the manager, pretending to be a counterpart from another country and even organizing a conference call to discuss a confidential acquisition. They then convinced the manager of the Indian division to transfer the money.

A recent Italian case is the attempted fraud by e-mail perpetrated on the President of Rai by boasting the name of the former minister Tria, with the documents sent to the judicial authority. If for companies and the public administration the attacks have more and more to do with the theft of information (see the Saipem or Unicredit case), regarding users more generally, for Faggioli the 'ransomware' will continue to represent a danger , which encrypt the information of the devices and you have to pay a ransom to get it back. While smartphones, given their diffusion, will be increasingly under attack. "But it matters a lot how the user uses these devices - warns the expert - all forms of protection can be adopted, but when you click on a random e-mail or browse unsecured sites it is not the product's fault ". "More than typologies of new attacks or radical changes in aggressions, in the next few months I think damage and sophistication will increase", observes Faggioli, who positively judges the recent decree on cybersecurity.

"Italy is doing excellent things - he explains - but there is a problem of investments. To make security you need money". Finally, the expert observes that in our country there are "excellence and professionalism in the cybersecurity sector, which is at a very high demand for work. There is no effect of the driving effect among young people with secondary schools that are struggling to give indications. Yet - he concludes - in the security world you can find work easily and make very fast careers ".