New data makes it crystal clear that spear phishing is a real problem… and organizations may not properly be prepared to detect and address it. Cybercriminals know the more targeted a phishing attack – from the email theming to the impersonation to the intended victim – the more likely the attack will be a success.

Wouldn’t it be great if your cybersecurity strategy only had to focus on just a few threats? Sigh… if only life were that easy. But new predictions for this year’s most prevalent cyber threats from analyst firm Forrester should help focus your efforts.. According to their newly released Top Cybersecurity Threats in 2023 (client access required), there are five threats to be concerned about.

New data puts the spotlight on the human factor in U.K. cyber attacks, where users continue to be susceptible to social engineering, creating the so-called “Human Risk.” Here at KnowBe4, we’re obviously big believers in the fact that users are a source of risk when it comes to organizational security. Cybersecurity vendor SoSafe’s Human Risk Review 2023 report provides some independent perspective on this very problem. According to the report, one out of two U.K.

The Wall Street Journal today revealed that North Korea's hacker army managed to steal a huge amount of cryptocurrency amounting to $3 billion to finance their nuclear program. US officials have confirmed this news. These hackers have a highly sophisticated method of operating. A specific example of their actions involved using a fake job offer to trick a startup into losing over $600 million. By posing as potential employers, they social engineered someone who was hopeful for a better job.

Verizon's DBIR always has a lot of information to unpack, so I’ll continue my review by covering how stolen credentials play a role in attacks. This year's Data Breach Investigations Report has nearly 1 million incidents in their data set, making it the most statistically relevant set of report data anywhere. So, what does the report say about the most common threat actions that are involved in data breaches?

People are one of the most common factors contributing to successful data breaches. Let’s dive in deeper into the latest Verizon Data-Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) to find out how and why users are a contributor to the problem.

The New Verizon DBIR is a treasure trove of data. As we covered here, and here, people are one of the most common factors contributing to successful data breaches. Let’s drill down a bit more in the Social Engineering section. They explained: "Now, who has received an email or a direct message on social media from a friend or family member who desperately needs money? Probably fewer of you. This is social engineering (pretexting specifically) and it takes more skill.

We occasionally learn of articles and papers that claim that security awareness training and/or simulated phishing campaigns are not effective. We don’t want to disparage what these individuals have found in their own experience, and we encourage everyone to find out how various social engineering mitigations work for themselves and their environments.

For years, KnowBe4 has been a long-time proponent of everyone using PHISHING-RESISTANT multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever possible. Unfortunately, most MFA is as easily phishable, hackable, and bypassable as the passwords they were intended to replace. Even though KnowBe4 was an early proponent of phishing-resistant MFA, now most of the world is coming around, including NIST and CISA. Why Do I Need Training If I Am Already Using Phishing-Resistant MFA?

My analysis of this year’s newly-released Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report begins with ransomware findings that point back to users as a big problem. If you only read one report each year to give you an idea of what’s going on with cyber attacks, it’s Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Each year, analysts sort through tens of thousands of data breach incidents (some successful, some not) and identify the attack patterns.