Phishing remains the favored and most successful method of obtaining an initial foothold in a targeted organization. So it should come as no surprise that threat actors have developed turnkey solutions that enable even low-skilled hackers to conduct successful email attacks.

Researchers at Bitdefender warn that law firms are high-value targets for ransomware gangs and other criminal threat actors. Attackers frequently use phishing to gain initial access to an organization’s networks. “Phishing is one of the most common attacks in the legal field,” the researchers write. “Cybercriminals pose as legitimate entities, tricking employees into divulging sensitive information or clicking malicious links.

Today, we’re excited to expand our recent Unified Risk Posture announcement with more information on our latest integrations with CrowdStrike. We previously shared that our CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM integration allows for deeper analysis and further investigations by unifying first- and third-party data, native threat intelligence, AI, and workflow automation to allow your security teams to focus on work that matters.

The 2024 Trustwave Risk Radar Report: Financial Services Sector underscores the escalating threat landscape facing the industry. Deepfakes, highly realistic synthetic media, and the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies are providing cybercriminals with new avenues to compromise financial institutions. These emerging threats are augmenting the already prevalent ransomware and phishing campaigns, creating a complex and dynamic threat environment.

Analysis of a new phishing attack demonstrates how attackers may take a longer path to reach their malicious goals while staying “under the radar” of security products. It would be pretty simple to create a phishing attack that sends its’ victims a brand-impersonated email with a link that takes you to an impersonated webpage that asks for credentials, personal details or credit card information. But many of today’s security products will detect the impersonation immediately.

Schools and libraries often lack the funding and staffing needed to build and maintain a robust cybersecurity program. They are also the exact kind of organizations threat actors prefer— under defended and a storehouse of personally identifiable information (PII). Considering that, in 2024, education was the second-most represented industry in ransomware attacks, and third-most in business email compromise (BEC) attacks, it’s clear that protection is paramount.

These days, we use Gmail for everything from customer service to telehealth. Over time, your Gmail account might become a treasure trove of sensitive PII, PCI, PHI, and passwords that hackers can leverage. In fact, as of this year, just under half of all data breaches involve email. So, what can you do to protect your inbox? Enter: email encryption.

Read also: A former cop gets 20 months in prison for selling victims’ personal data, a BEC scammer sentenced, and more.

Phishing remains a top initial access vector for threat actors, according to researchers at ReliaQuest. Phishing and other social engineering tactics can bypass security technologies by targeting humans directly. “The enduring dominance of phishing as an initial access technique underscores its effectiveness and persistence in the face of cybersecurity advancements and more sophisticated methodologies,” the researchers write.

You can spot a phishing website by checking the URL, looking at the website’s content, reading reviews of the website and using a password manager that can verify the legitimacy of websites. Continue reading to learn what phishing websites are, how to identify them and how to avoid landing on them.