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QR Codes That Don't Bode Well - The Harm That Quishing Attacks Can Do

Most organisations have security controls in place to inspect URLs in emails to prevent the risk of credential phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attacks. However, threat adversaries have pivoted their tactics to bypass security stacks. And clicking these types of attacks often leads to account takeover. In fact, data from Fortra’s PhishLabs in Q2 2023 reported more than three-quarters...
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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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What Is Email Spoofing & How You Protect Against It

What is Email Spoofing? Email spoofing is one of the most common forms of cybercriminal activity, specifically a form of identity deception that's widely used in phishing and spam attacks. It underpins the mechanism required to conduct hacking activities, and it can take many forms. Unfortunately, most email users will eventually receive an email that has been spoofed—whether they know it or not...
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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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Customer Phishing Protection Couldn’t Be Easier with PhishLabs' Digital Risk Protection

It’s not news that cybercrime is a constant battle—large enterprises and small businesses everywhere are susceptible to a myriad of advanced email threats and socially engineered attacks , such as executive or brand impersonation. According to IC3’s Internet Crime Report, over $44 million in losses in 2021 were a direct result of malicious phishing and advanced email scams. Despite billions having...
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2022 Data Privacy Week – Education and Inspiration

As the world becomes more and more dependent on online resources to complete daily tasks, such as work meetings, grocery shopping, and even exercising, the risk of cyber attacks, data breaches, and information stealing increases. If you’re not already protecting your personal information online, now is the perfect time to start, as Data Privacy Weeks kicks off today. Led by the National Cyber...
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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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Common Phishing Email Attacks | Examples & Descriptions

What does a phishing email look like? We've compiled phishing email examples to help show what a spoofed email looks like to prevent against phishing attacks. Brand deception phishing is the most common example of phishing people will come across. Brand deception phishing occurs when an attacker mimics a trusted company in an email and asks someone for their personal information like credit card...
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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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Inside a Compromised Account: How Cybercriminals Use Credential Phishing to Further BEC Scams

Why would a cybercriminal spend time developing malware when he can simply trick unsuspecting users into handing over their passwords? Why would a threat actor spend her money and resources on ransomware, when she can get that same information through a compromised account? It’s a good question, and exactly what the Agari Cyber Intelligence Division wanted to discover. In a growing trend known as...
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Cyber Threat Intelligence: How to Stay Ahead of Threats

Generally defined, cyber threat intelligence is information used to better understand possible digital threats that might target your organization. This data will help identify threats in order to prevent security breaches in the future. Why Cyber Threat Intelligence is Important Having a system in place that can produce threat intelligence is critical to staying ahead of digital threats, as well...
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Protecting Digital Communications During the Digital Transformation: A Look Back at Trust 2021

While we’re all Zoomed, Webexed and Teamed out after thirteen months of the pandemic, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the situation. They know we’re heavily relying on digital communications and they’re sending fake emails, pretending to be your boss. They’re sending fake invoices, pretending to be your vendor. They’re even sending fake requests for gift cards, on the off-chance that...
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Agari Report: New BEC Scam 7X More Costly Than Average, Bigger Phish Start Angling In

Sophisticated new threat actors, evolving phishing tactics, and a $800,000 business email compromise (BEC) scam in the second half of 2020 all signal big trouble ahead, according to new analysis from the Agari Cyber Intelligence Division (ACID). As captured in our H1 2021 Email Fraud & Identity Deception Trends Report , successful attacks on Magellan Health, GoDaddy, and the SolarWinds "hack of...
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Cosmic Lynx Returns in 2021 with Updated Tricks

In July 2020, we published a report on a Russian-based BEC group we called Cosmic Lynx . In that report , we described the tactics used by the group, which included its targeting of senior executives at large companies with a global footprint and how it uses mergers and acquisitions (M&A) themes in its BEC email lures. Shortly after we published the report, we saw a significant decrease in Cosmic...