Cyberattacks on Federal Workers Double Following Shutdown

The U.S. government shutdown has reportedly weakened the nation’s cyberdefenses.

Cyberattacks on government employees have almost doubled since the shutdown began at the start of the month, the cybersecurity-focused website Dark Reading reported Friday (Oct. 24).

With key agencies in limbo, workers furloughed and threat activity rising, the government and its employees are perhaps at their most vulnerable state ever, at least from a cybersecurity standpoint, the report said.

Cyberattackers have taken notice, the report said, with a surge of attacks so far this month. Researchers at the Media Trust flagged a spike of activity on Oct. 1, and are now projecting that the feds will experience north of 555 million cyberattacks by the end of the month — up 85% over an already unusually active month in September.

“These are targeted digital attacks through websites, apps and targeted advertising. What we are detecting are actual interactions with employees,” said Media Trust CEO Chris Olson, who noted that many of these interactions are targeting financially stressed employees.

Justin Miller, associate professor of cyber studies at the University of Tulsa and veteran of the Secret Service, told Dark Reading that he was familiar with the kinds of financial hardships federal employees face when the government shuts down.

“I remember last time, the DHS said, ‘Hey, give this to your mortgage company. It’s a letter saying you’re a Homeland Security employee, in case you can’t pay your mortgage.’ And my mortgage company laughed at me. They’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s great. I can appreciate your work for DHS, but your mortgage is due on the 15th and you need to pay it,’” he said.

In other cybersecurity news, PYMNTS wrote about the way artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to make social engineering scams faster, cheaper and more convincing. An analysis from Kaufman Rossin earlier this month cautioned that fraudsters have begun vishing, a type of phishing that uses voice calls instead of emails.

“Vishing attacks use social engineering techniques to impersonate legitimate callers, such as bank representatives, tech support agents or government officials, in order to trick victims into sharing sensitive information, such as login credentials or credit card numbers,” the analysis said.

These tactics, PYMNTS wrote, cross the boundary between genuine correspondence and deception. Meanwhile, “boss scams,” where criminals impersonate managers and pressure workers to buy gift cards, target new employees. By employing data from social media posts, attackers can gain credibility and exploit human psychology before IT systems can step in.