When a Phishing Email Changes History

We often hear about the dangers of phishing emails to individual companies, but do you know about the phishing email which (possibly) changed the course of history?

In March 2016, a gentleman named John Podesta received an email which appeared to be from Google. It said that it had blocked someone from Ukraine from logging in to his account, which would make sense as he was based in America at the time.

Podesta was suspicious and asked his IT team to take a look. They did, and recommended that he change his password anyway, just to be safe.

So he did as they advised, and set up a new password.

Only, he used the link in the email which he had received…

Which was indeed a phishing email…

And now the bad guys had his new password.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Podesta’s job at the time was Campaign Manager for Hillary Clintons election for US President.

So for the next seven months, the attackers had access to thousands of emails related to the campaign.

And when the timing was right, the emails were released publicly, which may have influenced the outcome of the 2016 Presidential elections.

Phishing emails are designed to grab your attention and get you to take action, by either

➡️ Provoking fear
➡️ Inciting curiosity
➡️ Raising concern
➡️ Instilling a sense of urgency

Tomorrow I am running a free webinar on scam and phishing emails, and how to recognise and protect against them.