According to two individuals close to the matter speaking with Reuters, several private equity firms, as well as a number of the largest hedge funds in the world, were targeted when cyber criminals attempted voice phishing (vishing) attacks on employees to gain access to information systems or be given information, according to the anonymous sources.
The two said that Two Sigma Investments and Citadel were among the hedge funds targeted, while Point72 Asset Management told investors that it had been targeted in a cyber attack, but could confirm that no customer data was exfiltrated in the incident.
Two Sigma confirmed that it had dealt with the incident, adding that its systems had not been impacted based on preliminary investigations.
“Our security team responded quickly to an attempted vishing campaign targeting Two Sigma and other investment managers, and we have no indication of any impact to our data or our systems,” said a company spokesperson.
“We continue to monitor the situation closely.”
According to reports, the attacks in question were AI-powered vishing attacks, demonstrating a key evolution in threat actor technique.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Will Wilson, chief executive of Antithesis, said AI allows threat actors to launch attacks against a wider array of targets at once and at reduced cost.
“The terrifying thing about modern-day AI systems is that they have commoditised this and made it possible to execute attacks at scale,” he said.
“Everybody will have to seriously level up. Otherwise, they are going to be in big trouble.”
Align Managed Services president Vinod Paul discussed just how effective the technology is for scammers and threat actors.
“Before they could attack 50 entities in a targeted attack, now they can do 1,000,” Paul said. “Hackers can also listen into a phone call and mimic the voice, tone and phrasings of the speakers to create fake calls.”
The threat actor behind the incident is currently unknown. Cyber Daily has yet to observe any cyber criminals taking responsibility for the incidents.
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