An unknown group of "faux femme fatales" have managed to get pertinent information from Syrian rebels says by a report from Fire Eye Security titled Behind the Syrian Conflict's Digital Front Lines. According to Fire Eye, an elaborate plan to lure members of the Syrian opposition rebels to get information took place between the months of November 2013 to January 2014.
The plan was rather simple, to create an attractive female avatar that will start a conversation on Skype with known affiliates of the opposition. The virtual faux femme fatales will then share a personal photo through Skype, BBC News reported.
For the plan to work, the victims were asked a seemingly innocent question - what type of device are they using and just like that - a tailor-fit malware is going to be sent to the victim through the personal photo. Once the photo was downloaded, the unknown group of hackers will access the victim's files - contacts, documents and even chat sessions. Any data that was deemed important to the operation was taken. Using this method, the group were able to shed some light on the tactics and strategy that opposition is planning to use against President Assad's forces.
The unknown group of hackers managed to use at least sixty four Skype accounts and stole 7.7 GB of data. They gained access to 31,000 chat conversations and 240, 381 messages. The group managed to infiltrate the names involved in the organization. More importantly, the group of faux femme fatales hackers were able to get information as to how the Syrian rebels are getting their funding and what attacks are they planning.
A chat conversation with the faux femme fatale usually starts with the basic question "Are you opening Skype on mobile?" or "How are you on Skype?" The victim will then answer it and the follow up question is going to be about date of birth. After that, the virtual femme fatale will send the malware-laden picture and when the victim opens the file - that's where the work starts.