From prodefence.org
Software developers are the people most targeted by hackers conducting cyberattacks against the technology industry, with the hackers taking advantage of the public profiles of individuals working in the high-turnover industry to help conduct their phishing campaigns.
The August 2019 Threat Intelligence Bulletin from cybersecurity company Glasswall details the industries most targeted by phishing, with the technology sector accounting for almost half of malicious phishing campaigns.
For attackers targeting technology businesses, the goal is often stealing intellectual property and other data, which can be either be sold for profit, or in the cases of corporate or state-backed espionage, used to build knock-off versions of the same products.
According to the Glasswall report, software developer is the role most targeted by hackers going after the technology sector. A key reason for this is that devs do the groundwork on building software and will often have administrator privileges across various systems. That’s something attackers can exploit to move laterally around networks and gain access to their end goal.