Crypto ransomware targets called by name in spear-phishing blast

For the past decade, spear phishing—the dark art of sending personalized e-mails designed to trick a specific person into divulging login credentials or clicking on malicious links—has largely been limited to espionage campaigns carried out by state-sponsored groups. That made sense. The resources it takes to research the names, addresses, and industries of large numbers of individuals was worth it when targeting a given organization that had blueprints or some other specific piece of data prized by the attacker.