Spear phishing campaign uses misinformation tactics aimed at the Lithuanian Defense Minister

• Attackers launched a spear phishing campaign from a spoofed email address that purported to be sent from an employee of the Ministry of Defense.
• The phishing emails were spreading fake news regarding an alleged corruption case in the Ministry of Defense.

What is the issue - Attackers used a misinformation tactic targeted at the Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis with the intent of discrediting him and the Ministry of national defense, Lithuania.

The big picture

On April 10, 2019, attackers launched a spear phishing campaign from a spoofed email address that purported to be sent from an employee of the Ministry of Defense.

• The phishing emails were spreading fake news on an alleged corruption case in the Ministry of Defense.
• The emails also included links which redirected recipients to a malicious page.
• The email message claimed that the Minister of National Defence Raimundas Karoblis took a bribe of USD 586 thousand in the process of weapons procurement and that one of the banks in Lithuania has documents proving it.

This fake news has also spread across Social Media.

What was the immediate action taken?

• The National Cyber Security Centre under the Ministry of National Defence has started an investigation on the issue.
• NCSC warns the public to not forward these emails or open the link in the email.

Dr. Rytis Rainy, Director of the National Cyber Security Centre noted that it is a typical cyber-attack based on the social engineering method: a forged e-mail address that is faked by other countries’ infrastructure and a convincing message aiming at deceiving or misleading.

“This incident is just another piece of evidence that in the age of technology we are living in the conditions of cyber warfare. I have no doubt that the real aim of the attackers is to discredit not only me as a politician but also the entire National Defence System and to hurt the public trust and support to the Armed Forces,” Raimundas Karoblis said.