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Blog

How To Make Reporting a Phish So Easy Even Your Busiest Execs Will Do It

Tue, 02/13/2018
Frustrating, isn't it? You design a powerful anti-phishing program, secure funding from your executive board, provide world-class training. You do everything right… Oh, your users are probably spotting phishing emails. After all, they've engaged with the training, and seem to be taking it seriously. But no matter how many times you remind them, they just won't report those phishing emails. ...
The 11 Types of Reported Emails
Blog

The 11 Types of Reported Emails

Thu, 01/18/2018
You receive an email, you are unfamiliar with the sender's name or email address, and they are offering you a new service or deal on something. Is it malicious? Not necessarily. Perhaps you forgot about signing up for a newsletter a while back. Malicious Versus Benign According to Symantec, 55.5 percent of business emails are considered spam emails, with the average business account getting...
A Quarter of Phishing Attacks are Now Hosted on HTTPS Domains: Why?
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A Quarter of Phishing Attacks are Now Hosted on HTTPS Domains: Why?

Tue, 12/05/2017
The push for more widespread adoption of HTTPS has been in full-force this year as a way to increase the number of websites that securely transmit information on the Internet. In January, both Chrome and Firefox browsers began alerting users whenever sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card information, was entered on a non-HTTPS web page. In October, Google took this a step...
Holiday Phishing Scams Target Job Seekers
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Holiday Phishing Scams Target Job Seekers

Tue, 11/21/2017
'Tis the season for shopping, time spent with friends and family, and preparations to celebrate the holidays. As most of us plan for the coming season, cyber criminals are looking for opportunities to catch victims off guard and steal valuable personal information. People looking to supplement their gift-giving budget with a seasonal holiday job should take a close look at job listings before...
Adwind Remote Access Trojan Still Going Strong
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Adwind Remote Access Trojan Still Going Strong

Wed, 11/01/2017
A Java-based Adwind Remote Access Trojan campaign has been observed sending spam emails containing a malicious JAR file under the guise of “Request For Quotation,” “Transfer Import,” “Swift Copy,” “Proforma Invoice,” “DHL Delivery Notification” and many others. Adwind, also known as jRAT and JSocket, is a cross-platform remote access tool designed to run on Mac OS, Windows, Linux, and Android...
Nigerian 419 Scams: How to Spot a Phish
Blog

Nigerian 419 Scams: How to Spot a Phish

Wed, 10/11/2017
All through October, in aid of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (#CyberAware) we’re putting phishing under the microscope. In each post we’ll take a close look at one specific type of phishing, including the actors responsible, who it targets, and how/why it works. Today, we’re a true phishing classic: Nigerian 419 scams. We've put the 15 best practices for spotting and handling...
BEC Scams: How to Spot a Phish
Blog

BEC Scams: How to Spot a Phish

Tue, 10/10/2017
All through October, in aid of National Cyber Security Awareness Month (#CyberAware) we’re putting phishing under the microscope. In each post we’ll take a close look at one specific type of phishing, including the actors responsible, who it targets, and how/why it works. Today, we’re exploring one of the most audacious phishing tactics: Business email compromise (BEC) also known as CEO scams....
The Impact of Phishing, and Why it Should be Your #1 Priority
Blog

The Impact of Phishing, and Why it Should be Your #1 Priority

Wed, 10/04/2017
Nation states. Hacktivists. Cyber criminals. There are so many players in the modern threat landscape it can be hard to keep up. And the number of threats? Practically too many to count. By the time you’ve secured your organization against password reuse, DDoS, and crimeware attacks, your resources are likely so diminished there’s no point even thinking about what else could be out there. ...
The Mobile Phishing Threat You'll See Very Soon: URL Padding
Blog

The Mobile Phishing Threat You'll See Very Soon: URL Padding

Thu, 06/15/2017
The fact that hackers are increasingly targeting mobile devices isn’t exactly a secret. And really, it’s not surprising either. After all, most of us are practically glued to our smartphones throughout the day. An SMS arrived? Better read it straight away. New email? Let me at it. Somebody I don’t care about updated their Facebook status? Great, let’s see what they’re up to. The...
How to Use URL Pattern Analysis for Phishing Detection Mitigation
Blog

How to Use URL Pattern Analysis for Phishing Detection Mitigation

Fri, 05/05/2017
When you’re attempting to mitigate the risk of phishing, threat intelligence plays a vital role. After all, what better way to predict and intercept future phishing attacks than by analyzing past attacks for patterns and indicators? This post is the second in a series breaking down lessons learned from our recent consumer-focused phishing webinar. In the first post we covered the value of...
Press Release

PhishLabs Ranked Highest for Cybercrime Threat Intelligence

Winners announced at InfoSec World 2017 in Orlando. Charleston, S.C., April 20, 2017 – PhishLabs, the leading provider of 24/7 phishing defense and intelligence solutions, today announced it was recently ranked highest in cybersecurity client experience in the category of Cybercrime Threat Intelligence by Black BookTM of Cybersecurity LLC, a division of Brown-Wilson Group, Inc. The announcement...
How To Build a Powerful Security Operations Center, Part 2: Technical Requirements
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How To Build a Powerful Security Operations Center, Part 2: Technical Requirements

Wed, 04/19/2017
In the last post, we took a look at the logistical and human issues surrounding the setup of a new security operations center (SOC). And while having a mission, the right people, and a physically secure location are all vital to the success of a new SOC, there are many more things to consider before you can jump in and get started. In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the...
How To Build a Powerful Security Operations Center, Part 1: Motivation Logistics
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How To Build a Powerful Security Operations Center, Part 1: Motivation Logistics

Fri, 04/14/2017
There’s a certain mystique and excitement surrounding the idea of a security operations center. It puts your in mind of a mission control style room, possibly in an underground bunker, where people in uniforms shout orders and spend all their time responding to imminent threats. And in a world where cyber attacks have become a daily reality, and even midsize organizations are forced to...
The Phishing Email that Fooled Thousands of Trained Users
Blog

The Phishing Email that Fooled Thousands of Trained Users

Thu, 03/09/2017
It’s a sobering moment. You work long and hard to prepare your users. You train them. You test them. And over time, you see amazing results. But then it happens. Just when you think your users are becoming rockstars at identifying phishing emails, threat actors throw a new tactic at you… and everybody falls for it. Of course, this isn’t a new story. Threat actors constantly update their...
Phishing with Wildcard DNS Attacks and Pharming
Blog

Phishing with Wildcard DNS Attacks and Pharming

By Jessica Ryan on Fri, 03/03/2017
The cyclical relationship between threat actors and security professionals begins with the creation of a new attack technique, followed by the discovery of that technique by the security community, and then a refashioning of the manner of attack or creation of another novel approach by threat actors. Phishers are always seeking better ways to entice victims into providing their personal and...
Dissecting the Qadars Banking Trojan
Blog

Dissecting the Qadars Banking Trojan

Wed, 02/22/2017
Qadars is a sophisticated and dangerous trojan used for crimeware-related activities including banking fraud and credential theft. Qadars targets users through exploit kits and is installed using Powershell Scripts. We have observed Qadars targeting multiple well-known banks in UK and Canada and is capable of stealing infected users' two-factor authentication codes and banking credentials through...
Security Awareness Training: A Recipe for Success
Blog

Security Awareness Training: A Recipe for Success

Wed, 01/04/2017
In recent months we’ve written a lot about security awareness and phishing awareness training. It’s an involved topic, clearly, and if you’ve taken away anything we hope it will be this: If you want real, measurable improvements you must test your employees. And when it comes to email security, that means phishing your employees on a regular basis. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into a...
Press Release

The Phishie Awards: (Dis)Honoring The Best Of The Worst Phishing Attacks

The FBI dubbed the category of attacks “business email compromise” in an August advisory. At that time, the Bureau estimated that, since 2013, the total dollar losses to American companies exceeded $740 million, while only hitting around 7,000 targets. When international victims are added in, the losses total $1.2 billion. Don Jackson, threat researcher and malware analyst for PhishLabs explains,...
How and Why You Should Calculate Your Organization's Cost of Phishing
Blog

How and Why You Should Calculate Your Organization's Cost of Phishing

Tue, 11/15/2016
Everybody knows phishing is costly to their organization. But how costly? Few organizations know for sure. Plenty of studies have claimed to calculate the cost of phishing, but the results are usually hard to swallow. For instance, does phishing cost your organization $1.6 million per incident? Or $3.7 million per year? Perhaps... but probably not. The issue with these figures is that they're...
Why Some Phishing Emails Will Always Get Through Your Spam Filter
Blog

Why Some Phishing Emails Will Always Get Through Your Spam Filter

By Jessica Ryan on Thu, 09/15/2016
Frustrating, isn’t it? It seems like no matter what you do, a few phishing emails always find their way into your users’inboxes. You’ve tweaked your spam filter, and you’re scanning every attachment… But nothing seems to work. Is it you? Are you making some glaring mistake? Probably not. We've discussed before why your users keep falling for phishing scams, and there's more to it. The...