Hackers Target Top Executives

This shouldn't come as any big surprise, but hackers are doing their homework to conduct targeted attacks against wealthy individuals like CEOs.

For publicly held companies, information about top executives is easy to find in financial documents they are required by law to submit to the SEC.

Executives themselves are more mobile and likely to get into technology on their own, using devices freely and getting themselves into all kinds of trouble. This is not to mention all kinds of other juicy data they may unwittingly post proudly on social networking sites like LinkedIn.

Proudly? Yes, they're just trying to market both themselves and their companies. No harm done, but some education is needed to protect the higher ups.

Here are some tips:

• Make sure all desktops, laptops and mobile devices in the hands of executives are already hardened, patched and have unnecessary services turned off.
• Educate them to be careful with posting company information on web applications like Google Calendar, where data can be publicly accessible.
• Teach them to only use VPNs while on the road (Good Luck!) and to watch for common social engineering attacks.