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The Science Behind the Scenes: How Machine Learning Combats Phishing Attacks and BEC

Because email remains the most ubiquitous form of business communication, it continues to be a favorite attack vector for cybercriminals. Email has always been vulnerable because it was not originally designed with security or privacy in mind. As a result, email security vendors emerged to protect this critical communication channel. In the early days, many vendors used signature or reputation...
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Financials & Card Data Top Q3 Targets on the Dark Web

In Q3, credit unions nearly overtook national banks as the top targeted industry on the Dark Web, according to recent data from Fortra’s PhishLabs.
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Emails Reported as Malicious Reach Four-Quarter High in Q3

The volume of malicious emails reported in corporate inboxes has reached a four-quarter high, according to the latest data from Fortra's PhishLabs.
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What Is Whaling Phishing & How Does It Work?

“Whaling” phishing fraud attacks target the C-suite of a company which creates high risk of extremely sensitive, mission-critical data being stolen and exposed. Fortunately, protecting the organization from these attacks is possible. Whaling phishing is a type of phishing attack targeting larger, high-value targets, which is why it's called "Whaling." Attackers themselves often pretend to be C...
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How to Run Simulated Phishing Campaigns

Here's how to run a simulated phishing campaign to test and train your employees before they receive an actual phishing email. What is a Phishing Campaign? To be clear, when we say “phishing campaign,” we’re not referring to malicious, black-hat phishing campaigns. A simulated phishing campaign is part of an internal training program to raise employee awareness about real-world phishing attacks...
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Six Steps to Email Security Best Practice

To help IT teams define a robust email security policy and determine what’s required from an email security solution, we’ve put together a new six-step guide.
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What Is Email Phishing? Protect Your Enterprise

Phishing emails can steal sensitive data and cost companies' their reputation. However, protecting a company from these scammers doesn't need to be difficult. What Is Email Phishing? Phishing is when an attacker mimics a trusted person or brand in an attempt to steal sensitive information, or gain a foothold inside a company network. While phishing emails are by far the most popular, these attacks...
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It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year… for Cybercriminals

The holiday season is upon us, which means it’s also the busiest time of the year for online shopping. There’s Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and gifts to buy for loved ones. Plus, gifts to buy for yourself when the deals are this good! But beware, for cybercriminals ‘tis also the season to scam millions of dollars from unsuspecting people and companies. They’re banking on people being in a rush and...
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TLS Email Encryption: What It Is & How to Check if Your Email Is Using It

What exactly is TLS when it comes to email encryption? TLS, or cybersecurity protocol Transport Layer Security first developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), was designed to establish secure communications that provide both privacy and data security. Originally created from another encryption protocol called Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, you may hear others use SSL and TLS...
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Email Security: Agari Delivers a Whole New Level of Actionable Insight to Outpace Threat Actors

CISOs and their teams are about to get some serious performance enhancers in their high-stakes race against email security threats. According to the FBI, phishing campaigns, business email compromise (BEC) scams, and other advanced email attacks have resulted in $26 billion in business losses over the course of three years. Then 2020 happened. With 75 million corporate employees even now still...
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What is Email Spoofing & How to Stop Attackers from Spoofing Your Email Address

What is email spoofing, how does it work, and why is it so dangerous to your company? We’ll explain everything you need to proactively stop attackers from spoofing your email address. Email Spoofing: What Is It? Email spoofing is when a fraudster forges an email header’s ‘From’ address to make it appear as if it was sent by someone else, usually a known contact like a high-level executive or...
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BEC Cash-out Methods: Email Fraudsters Experimenting With Alternative Approaches

Business email compromise ( BEC ) actors are exploring alternative cash-out methods for spiriting away the profits from their crimes. Traditional bank accounts have long been the go-to choice for email scammers seeking to cash out the funds they've pilfered from organizations they victimize. Just since 2016, BEC groups have defrauded businesses out of more than $26 billion worldwide. But over the...
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BEC Attacks: What They Are, How to Spot Them, and What to Do

Here we’ll cover what BEC attacks are, how they work, what they usually look like, and how to handle them. What is a BEC Attack? 7 Common BEC Attack Patterns Top Identity Deception Techniques How Can BEC Attacks be Stopped? What's the Best Way to Recover From a BEC Attack? What is a BEC Attack? First, let me explain what a BEC attack is. In short, Business Email Compromise phishing occurs when...
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Agari Fall ' 20 Release Boosts CISO Confidence in Enterprise DMARC Deployment

With cyber gangs leveraging business email compromise (BEC) attacks that actively exploit their targets' level of DMARC adoption, CISOs have been ratcheting up email security. Until now, the need to dial up defenses against imposters posing as senior executives in email attacks has been increasingly forcing legitimate business correspondence into quarantine. The chain reaction kneecaps commerce...
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Phishing: How to Protect Against Email Attacks Sent from Compromised SendGrid Accounts

Blocking SendGrid email traffic isn't a realistic option for most businesses hit by a barrage of phishing attacks emanating from compromised accounts at the Twilio-owned email service provider in recent months. Instead, Agari leverages a strategic data modeling approach to neutralize the threat while enabling legitimate SendGrid-distributed emails to safely reach employee inboxes. More on that in...
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DMARC: How Phishing Rings Can Use Your Email Authentication Controls Against You

In the first reported case of its kind, a phishing ring in Eastern Europe is exploiting companies' own Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance ( DMARC ) controls to impersonate CEOs in business email compromise (BEC) scams worth millions. As detailed in our new threat actor dossier on a group we call Cosmic Lynx , the Agari Cyber Intelligence Division (ACID) has identified...
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Business Email Compromise: New Shift in BEC Threat Landscape Puts CISOs on Notice

A seismic shift in the email threat landscape has CISOs bracing for sophisticated new forms of business email compromise (BEC) scams, as phishing's center of gravity begins to tilt from West African email scammers toward Russian and Eastern European cybercrime lords. As detailed in our new threat actor dossier on a threat group we call Cosmic Lynx , the Agari Cyber Intelligence Division (ACID) has...
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Forrester: Agari Phishing Defense Works a 97% ROI Over Three Years

A new Total Economic Impact (TEI) Study from Forrester finds that Agari Phishing Defense™ (APD) delivered results 36% faster than competing solutions, and results in a 97% ROI in just three years. But it turns out that's just the warm-up act. TEI reports are designed to help organizations accurately evaluate potential IT initiatives. In this instance, we commissioned the study so Forrester...
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COVID-19 Credential Phishing Scams: Feeding Off Coronavirus Fears

Since the beginning of February, we have seen more than a 3,000% increase in Coronavirus-themed phishing attacks targeting our customers. The spike in attacks is as logical as it is repugnant. With an estimated 75 million employees more reliant than ever on email during the largest "work-from-home experiment" in history, phishing scammers and other threat actors seem hellbent on exploiting...
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Phishing Attacks: Top 3 Reasons Healthcare Employees Are Prime Targets

A growing body of evidence suggests employees throughout the healthcare sector may be uniquely vulnerable to phishing attacks. If finding itself a growing target for cybercriminals weren’t bad enough, the industry is also seeing associated lawsuits piling up. Montana-based Kalispell Regional Healthcare was recently hit with a suit after it disclosed that multiple employees had fallen victim to...