There is an underlying constant when it comes to creating a strong defense—the more layers of defense in place, the better. Sure, having a single stout wall in place might be strong enough to deter some attackers, but it is simply not enough to counter a foe determined to gain entry. This holds true whether the defender is a castle, sports team, or an organization.
Findings from our recent report, Fighting phishing: the IT leader's view, reveal that 98% of the companies surveyed conducted some form of cybersecurity training over the past 12 months. Yet, despite these efforts, employees keep falling for phishing attacks. Our research shows that 84% of the organizations we surveyed last year were phishing victims – a 15% increase from our 2021 report, The real and rising risk of phishing.
When configuring an email client application or an email server to send to relay emails, many questions come to one’s mind, such as which SMTPs should be used, what is the purpose of each of these ports, which are standard ports, which ports allow secure communication and many more.
Over the last few years, Microsoft 365 has significantly enhanced its native security capabilities. Today, it offers a solid foundation of protection from advanced attacks, making it a popular choice for organizations. However, security threats are advancing rapidly, and Microsoft 365 still has some points of weakness that are leaving users vulnerable. Cybersecurity experts' views on email risk within Microsoft 365 is our most recent report identifying the security risks its users face.
Companies have increasingly allowed bring your own device (BYOD) policies to support remote work, but in today’s cybersecurity landscape, this trend has led to an increased attack surface. Each additional endpoint increases the potential for credentials to be compromised through credential phishing attacks. Hackers are leveraging this trend to conduct insider attacks, leaving businesses vulnerable to data breaches.
Thanks to social media, online publications, and 24-hour news channels, we’ve never been more hooked into the news cycle. Whether you want to see them or not, the headlines are never far from your eyes and ears. Cybercriminals can weaponize this to their advantage and tailor their phishing attacks to coincide with topical news stories.
Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world, amassing 988 million monthly active users as of January 2022, according to Statista. One important feature of this platform is Messenger’s bot. Within the current digital landscape, chatbots are widely used by companies and individuals to connect with their customers online, and almost immediately pops up when chatting with brands or businesses.
Phishing attacks make up over 90% of all data breaches (according to Cisco's 2021 Cybersecurity Threat Trends Report), far outnumbering malware and ransomware attacks, affecting millions of users yearly. The main issue with phishing attacks is that users and organizations are poorly trained to identify them. Even with the latest security protocols and software in place, it's impossible to fully protect against cyber threats without proper security awareness training.
Read also: Japanese auto hose maker Nichirin suffers a ransomware attack, Russia steps up cyber-espionage, and more.
The last 24 months has seen a steady stream of media attention relating to attacks on the supply chain. The impact is real, as is the cost. We have watched both big name security like SolarWinds and open source such as log4js serve as targets with devastating effects. Quite often the methods used have anecdotally relied on technical means and to a lesser degree social engineering.
