Phishing

How Perfectly Safe Emails From Trusted Parties Suddenly Turn Dangerous

by | May 21, 2019 | Phishing

When you think of phishing attacks, you think about some hacker directly sending you a malicious email with the hope that you’ll trust them and click on a link or download a file. But, people are getting wise to phishing emails, because there’s plenty of phishing awareness training out there.

The bottom line is, people have their radar up now for phishing emails and it takes a lot for them to let their guard down. Of course hackers know this, so, unfortunately, they’ve upped their game too. (more…)

Phishing Attacks: Top Executives Better be Worried

by | May 14, 2019 | Phishing

If you’re in the C-suite, you’d better get yourself some phishing protection. The hackers are coming after you, and they’re not going to stop because you’re just too lucrative a target.

According to the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, social engineering attacks were up last year against C-level executives. Further amplifying the point, an article on SC Magazine website went on to say, “Compared to previous years covered by the report, C-level executives last year were 12 times more likely to be the target of a social engineering incident and nine times more likely to be the target in a breach caused by social engineering.”

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Compromised Microsoft Credentials is Code for They Got Phished

by | Apr 18, 2019 | Phishing

If you haven’t already heard, Hackers compromised Microsoft support agent’s credentials to access customer email accounts, according to an article on TechCrunch. The article states that “Microsoft has confirmed to TechCrunch that a certain limited number of people who use web email services managed by Microsoft — which cover services like @msn.com and @hotmail.com — had their accounts compromised.”

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The Only Thing Worse Than Clicking on a Malicious Link in a Phishing Email

by | Apr 15, 2019 | Phishing, Phishing Awareness

You might think that the worst thing you can do with a phishing email is to click on the malicious link embedded within. You’d be wrong. There’s something worse, much worse. What’s that? How about forwarding the email to other employees, lots of them?

A recent article on security website SC Magazine details all the bad things employees do with suspicious emails. As things turn out it’s not uncommon for employees to forward (more…)

How Someone Else Getting Phished Can Cost You Your Life

by | Mar 29, 2019 | Phishing

When it comes to phishing attacks, you probably don’t give it a second thought when someone else gets phished. But maybe you should.

According to a new article on the Help Net Security website, “Cybersecurity threats are a rising problem in society, especially for healthcare organizations. Successful attacks can jeopardize not only patient data, but also patient care, leading to cancellations and disruptions in the critical services that hospitals provide.”

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Phishing Prevention Best Practices eBook is Right on the Mark

by | Mar 6, 2019 | Phishing, Phishing Awareness

phishprotection best practices cover

In our phishing prevention best practices eBook, we provide ten best practices for small and mid-size businesses. We know these practices work. We know they’re right on point today. We want small and mid-size business to get and use this information. And once again we’ve been vindicated.

Internet security company Webroot came out with their 2019 Threat Report and wouldn’t you know it, the tried-and-true attack methods are still going strong. This means the phishing prevention best practices within the eBook are still applicable and essential for protecting your business.

For instance, best practice #6 states “Anti-phishing technology should check more than just embedded email links.” In addition to checking embedded email links, it’s imperative to check the linked-to website for malicious content. Characteristics to be checked on the linked-to website include on-page content, hidden fields and JavaScript with injection code.

The Webroot report confirmed that “A massive 40% of malicious URLs were found on good domains, since legitimate websites are frequently compromised to host malicious content.” The link you click on may be a good one and take you to the website you want to go, but that doesn’t mean the website you want to go to hasn’t been compromised. And there is no way you will know unless you let scanning technology like that available from PhishProtection intervene on your behalf.

Between January and December 2018, the number of phishing sites detected grew 220%.

Another example is best practice #7. “Anti-phishing technology should conduct all checks in real time as well as provide alerts in real time.” Like we always say at PhishProtection, if you’re not checking things in real time, don’t bother.

It’s good to check embedded links when an email first arrives, but that’s not good enough. Links need to be checked every time a user clicks on them, right at that moment. In real time. Why?

According to the Threat Report, “It’s important to keep in mind that IP addresses are not static and may cycle from malicious to benign and back multiple times. While 60% of the millions of malicious IP addresses we saw in 2018 only appeared on the list once, hundreds of thousands appeared at least two or more times.”

The report goes on to point out that blacklisted IP addresses do not stay on the blacklist indefinitely. “IPs on the blacklist are revisited to see if they still exhibit malicious behavior. If not, they leave the blacklist. Hundreds of thousands of new IPs are added to and removed from the blacklist multiple times a day.”

It does you no good to only check embedded links upon arrival. If you’re going to invest in an anti-phishing software to protect your business from phishing attacks, you better make sure the technology includes real-time scanning protection, like that found in PhishProtection.

If you run a small business and are new to the subject of phishing protection, step one is to download your free copy of the best practices eBook.

If you run a small business and you’ve already decided it’s time to protect your employees from phishing attacks, and you want to protect your entire company in 10 minutes for less than you think, head on over and try anti phishing solution risk free for 30 days. You’ll be glad you did.

Why More and More Phishing Attacks are Going After Mobile Users

by | Feb 14, 2019 | Phishing, Phishing Awareness

Phishing attacks are hard to stop because hackers are extremely sophisticated and they use every method available. What hackers have discovered is that one of the best methods available is to target mobile devices. As challenging as it is for users to identify well-constructed phishing emails on a desktop, it’s much more difficult on mobile devices and hackers know it. And they’re starting to take advantage of it.

According to an article by security firm cyperscoop, Phishing attacks against mobile devices rise 85 percent annually. Why is that? From the article, “It’s harder to spot phishing websites on mobile devices compared to a desktop computer which puts the most important device in people’s lives at a distinct disadvantage. As a result, mobile users are historically more likely to fall for phishing attacks.”

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Phishing in the News

by | Feb 6, 2019 | Phishing, Phishing Awareness

2018’s Primary Breach Actors Were Malicious Outsiders

According to a Whitepaper by security firm Tripwire, “2018’s primary breach actors were malicious outsiders. They were behind 56 percent of all breaches, followed by

  • accidental loss at 34 per­cent,
  • malicious insiders at 7 percent,
  • hacktivists at 2 percent, and
  • the remain­ing 1 percent falling into unknown.”

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Do I Need Third-Party Phishing Protection for Office 365?

by | Aug 11, 2018 | Cybersecurity, Office 365, Phishing

Office 365’s security features won’t protect users from all cyber security threats.

 

Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 user base is growing at a steady rate. Since the office platform first outperformed Google Apps in 2015, it’s seen a constant uptick in activity.

Now, Microsoft reports it counts its Office 365 users in the hundreds of millions. However, enterprise usage does not always equal enterprise value – particularly when it comes to cybersecurity as it misses out providing office 365 advanced threat protection for users.

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Phishing Attack Mechanics: How Cybercrime Strategy Works

by | Aug 3, 2018 | Advanced Threat Defense, Cybersecurity, Phishing

Phishing attacks follow five key steps. Effective cybersecurity prevents them at each one.

“I’d never fall for that.”

“It’ll never happen to me.”

“They’re not interested in companies like ours.”

Almost every cybercrime victim has said words like these at one time or another. Anyone who believes that they, their company, or their colleagues are too street-smart to be victimized by cyber attacks doesn’t know just how sophisticated these attacks can be.

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The Top 5 Phishing Scams in History – What You Need to Know

by | Jul 24, 2018 | Phishing, Phishing Awareness

Learn how to protect yourself by studying the biggest phishing scams in history

If we draw an analogy between phishing and fishing, some scam artists are industrial-sized trawling operations that scrape the sea clean.

Automated software and sophisticated tools make it possible for enterprising cybercriminals to scale their fraudulent emails in ways never imagined. Processes that used to be laborious and time-consuming can now be coded into automatic routines that cast a wider net than the previous generations of cybercriminals were ever able to.

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