BY JILL R. AITORO, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hostile code attached to e-mail messages is one of the most significant cybersecurity problems federal agencies face today, said an industry analyst and former FBI investigator on Tuesday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.?It?s getting scarier and scarier and scarier,? said Michael Gibbons, principal of security and privacy services at Deloitte and former chief of computer crime investigations. 'It?s not a case of Chicken Little, 'The sky is falling.' The sky is actually falling [and] it?s just a matter of when a piece is going to hit you on the head.'

Long recognized as a serious problem, phishing attacks send messages masquerading as notices from legitimate organizations or persons to computer users, with the expectation that they will click on a link and enter personal information, such as bank account numbers or passwords. Spear phishing attacks, however, target specific individuals, frequently using their name, and are therefore harder to spot and avoid. ...