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...

Office 365 phishing emails come in common patterns. I'll list them here and also cover Office 365 anti-phishing features for prevention, detection, and response. Today, the typical Office 365 phishing emails direct users to fake Office 365 Sign-in pages. The victim submits their credentials, effectively handing over their password. Fraudsters use that login to access the victim’s address book...

We'll cover what DKIM for email is, why your company needs it, how it works, how to set DKIM up, and additional ways to prevent email spoofing attacks. What is DKIM? First, let’s clarify what DKIM is in email. DomainKeys Identified Mail is a technique that uses your domain name to sign your emails with a digital “signature” so your customers know it’s really you sending those emails and that they...

In this post, we will look at 5 keys to DMARC success both organizationally and in enterprise-wide implementation. Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) is a standard email authentication protocol that plays an essential role in any organization’s cyber security arsenal. That’s because DMARC is key to protecting your business, customers, and partners from email...

Over the last five years, Business Email Compromise (BEC) has evolved into the predominant cyber threat businesses face today. Since 2016, businesses have lost at least $26 billion as a result of BEC scams and, based on the most recent FBI IC3 report , losses from BEC attacks grew another 37 percent in 2019—accounting for 40 percent of all cybercrime losses over the course of the year. The...

We'll explain how to configure DMARC for your company's email, including what you'll need and how to add DMARC to your DNS. Just follow these DMARC setup steps! Before we begin, here’s a high-level overview of how to add DMARC to your DNS. Add your DMARC record into your DNS Select the TXT record type Add the host value (see details below) Add the value information (see details below) Save the...

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...

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...

For a growing number of email marketers, it may be "BIMI or bust." As of June 30, nearly 5,300 companies have adopted Brand Indicators for Message Identification ( BIMI ), a new email standard for showcasing a brand's logo next to its email messages in recipient inboxes, with built-in protections against phishing-based brand spoofing. The tally reflects a 3.8X increase in the number of brands...

If you haven't deployed Domain-based Messaging Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) to protect your brand from being impersonated in phishing scams, there are pressing reasons to jump on it now. Without a doubt, these are extraordinary times for individuals and organizations alike as we've been forced to change the way we work, shop, play, and live seemingly overnight, and for far...

With marketers more dependent on digital channels, many may accelerate their tests of Google's AMP for Email technology in search of an edge. But without an email protocol called Domain-based Messaging Authentication, Reporting and Conformance ( DMARC ), fraudsters could weaponize the trust customers expect from your brand for their own evil intentions and put consumers and businesses at risk. The...

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...

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...

“At some point, Russian and Eastern European cybercriminals are going to start thinking to themselves, ‘Why am I spending all of this time and money setting up infrastructure and hiring malware developers when I can just send someone an email, ask them to send me money, and they’ll do it.’” For more than a year, this is a line we have used over and over again, expecting that some of the world’s...

Amid a troubling rise in zero-day phishing attacks, recent research suggests that some companies may be making an ill-advised shift away from blocking advanced email threats to responding to them post-delivery. If true, the capitulation couldn't come at a worse time. Since January, cybercriminals taking advantage of the COVID-19 outbreak have been targeting businesses and individuals with an...

With 60 million corporate employees working remotely due to the Coronavirus outbreak, cybercriminals are switching up their tactics in business email compromise (BEC) scams. In what has been called the " world's largest work-from-home experiment ," organizations around the globe are being forced to quickly transition to a remote workforce, ready or not. Cybercriminals have opportunistically...

Hint: DMARC Alone Won't Cut It Think the prospect of cybercriminals using your domains to launch phishing attacks sounds bad for your brand? Just wait until you hear the latest on lookalike domains. Over the last few months, researchers have been discovering a troubling number of phishing sites that feature domains meant to impersonate leading brands in a variety of industries. Sometimes referred...

You’ve heard the statistics…more than 70% of all business users will be provisioned with cloud office applications in the next two years, including email. It’s an overdue modernization that eliminates physical infrastructure to drive cost savings and integrate services for improved productivity Chasing this move, cybercriminals intent on account takeover are evolving their tactics, targeting end...

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on the Microsoft Security blog and has been republished here. You already know that email is the number one attack vector for cybercriminals. But what you might not know is that without a standard email security protocol called Domain Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance ( DMARC ), your organization is open to the phishing attacks that...

Marketo. Salesforce. Eloqua. Bamboo HR. Zendesk. It only takes a minute to realize how much organizations love third-party senders. They are typically responsible for sending our important customer notifications, marketing promotions, prospecting emails, and even employee information. Because their mail is so important to your business, we should do what we can to help them become DMARC compliant...