14 DAY TRIAL // While investigating the massive data breach they had suffered, Stratfor representatives were made aware of some emails allegedly from the company’s CEO George Friedman, urging recipients to provide personal information.
It seems that the email comes with a malicious attachment that requests sensitive information from the user.
“I want to assure everyone that this is not my email address and that any communication from this address is not from me. I also want to assure everyone that Stratfor would never ask customers and friends to provide personal information through the type of attachment that was part of the email at issue,” Friedman states.
“This email, and all similar ones, are false and attempt to prey on the privacy concerns of customers and friends. We strongly discourage you from opening such attachments. We deeply regret the inconvenience this latest development has created.”
The company advises “customers and friends” to utilize only official communication channels to get in touch with Stratfor. Also, the organization’s Facebook and Twitter profiles are considered to be the best way to monitor the company’s notifications.
Fred Burton, Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence, also made a video statement to authenticate the warning message.
In the meantime, while dealing with the hacking incident, the intelligence firm is trying to continue doing their normal tasks. They reveal that their analysts are currently focusing on areas such as the 2012 forecast, the intelligence network of key Middle Eastern nations, a look at pro-al Assad militia, and the Strait of Hormuz situation.
Their customers are not happy about the situation, but Stratfor is offering them CSID identity protection to make sure they don’t fall victims to any unfortunate incident.
Take a look at the fake email, provided by one of Stratfor’s customers:
Hello loyal Stratfor clients,
We are still working to get our website secure and back up and running again as soon as possible.
To show our appreciation for your continued support, we will be making available all of our premium content *as a free service* from now on.
We would like to hear from our loyal client base as to our handling of the recent intrusion by those deranged, sexually deviant criminal hacker terrorist masterminds. Please fill out the following form and return it to me.
Fred Burton, Stratfor’s VP of Intelligence statement:
