While there is debate about how the WannaCry ransomware attack in May was spread, it seems fairly clear that yesterday’s Goldeneye attack was delivered via spear phishing. Reuters reported:

An adviser to Ukraine's interior minister said earlier in the day that the virus got into computer systems via "phishing" emails written in Russian and Ukrainian designed to lure employees into opening them.

The New York Times reported last week that spear phishing attacks have escalated recently targeting nuclear power plants, utilities and manufacturers. The article focused specifically on the threat to nuclear facilities where “spear phishing” was the common cyber attack technique.

A new infographic from Crozdesk illustrates the negative impact a cyber security attack can have on a business. Cyber attacks are becoming more sophisticated and more frequent making companies even more vulnerable. And the consequences are becoming more severe.

Three years ago, Martin Engineering IT Manager Mike Komnick started to see a rise in spear phishing emails. They were supposedly from the CEO and sought to initiate wire transfers. One was even in process, but thankfully, canceled before completion.

Graphus®  is used by organizations of all sizes and various industries. Many of our customers that use Microsoft Office 365 also have implemented Microsoft’s Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with the goal of protecting their organization from sophisticated cyber attacks.

Reston, VA – June 27, 2018 – Graphus, a social engineering defense company that provides automated protection from social engineering threats such as phishing, spear phishing, business email scams, ransomware, and malware attacks for Office 365 and G Suite users, announced today that Richard “Koz” Korzeniewski is joining their team as Vice President, Partner & Channel Sales.

The Rise in Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malicious software designed to block access to a computer system until a sum of money is paid.

Ransomware attacks have been on the rise and all signs point to it not slowing down anytime soon. According to Radware’s Global Application and Network Security Report, the number of companies that fell victim of ransomware and paid the ransom, increased by 40% from 2016. In 2018, executives don’t expect this to go away with 26% believing it will be the biggest threat to their business.

Detecting and alerting messages that include malicious links (and attachments!) is nothing new for Graphus. Our product has been able to do this and auto-quarantine any emails carrying malware since it was released to the public.

Analyzing URLs and attachments in real-time and automatically removing threatening emails from the recipient(s) inbox has proven to be extremely valuable for our customers but attackers are constantly looking for ways to successfully circumvent the protections in place.

Dun & Bradstreet was hacked. So what? Lots of businesses are hacked. Why should I care about yet another cybersecurity breach? Well, this one very likely involves you personally. SC Magazine reported that:

“A Dun & Bradstreet 52GB database containing about 33.6 million records with very specific details about each of the people involved from job title to email address has been exposed.