Once More into the Breach Go Vendors

The recent spear phishing attacks at RSA and Epsilon are providing a means for enterprise Web security firms to ply a mix of research and applied science as part of a soft sell of their technology that at the very least succeeds in giving a look into how these attacks can be so easily executed.

While both Trusteer and Strikeforce sell security technology and thus have skin in the data breach prevention game, their respective forays into Web crime scholarship do shine a light on the role of keylogging and social engineering as a growing threat to banks, insurers and financial services firms—creating a broader danger than consumer-targeted phishing attacks, given the breadth of network and data access a criminal can obtain by hijacking PCs on the inside.