Articles about Phishing

Adobe exposed personal data of 7.5 million Creative Cloud users in unsecured database

Adobe logo on wall

The personal data of nearly 7.5 million Adobe Creative Cloud users was exposed earlier this month when an unsecured database was discovered online.

The database, which could be accessed by anyone without the need for a username or password, included information such as email addresses, member IDs and payment status. People accessing the database were also able to see which Adobe products were used by individuals, the country they live in, and whether they are Adobe employees.

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Gone phishing -- how the threat has developed

credit card phishing

Phishing attacks have become commonplace to the point where we almost take them for granted. From the cybercriminal's point of view they are popular because they work.

But what are the origins of phishing and how has it developed? Email security specialist Anavan has put together an infographic looking at the history and future of the threat.

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Cybercriminals increase use of trusted domains to trick victims

web address bar

Nearly a quarter of malicious URLs are being hosted on trusted domains, as hackers know trusted domain URLs raise less suspicion among users and are more difficult for security measures to block.

This is one of the findings of the latest Webroot threat report which also shows 29 percent of detected phishing web pages use HTTPS as a method to trick users into believing they're on a trusted site via the padlock symbol.

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Netflix phishing tops all other attacks on streaming services

Netflix on Samsung phone

With nearly 151 million users worldwide, Netflix is the #1 streaming service in the world. It also has the distinction of being the most impersonated by hackers. For cybercriminals, Netflix phishing is a lucrative business. While other streaming services, including HBO NOW and Spotify, are also on the receiving end of phishing attacks, none comes close to Netflix.

Netflix’s 155 million subscriber base offers a lucrative supply of personal information, contributing to its favorability with phishers. In Vade Secure's quarterly Phisher’s Favorites report for Q2 2019, Netflix was the 4th most impersonated brand in phishing attacks, with 8.2 percent quarter-over-quarter growth in Q2 2019.

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Gambling with cyber risk -- the odds are not on your side

Roulette wheel

A new report from secure collaboration platform Wire, produced in collaboration with a global poker champion, looks at the risks businesses run with cyber security and comparing them to other everyday occurrences, with some startling findings.

Among them are that an employee is three times more likely to infect a colleague with a malicious email than they are to spread the flu to their partner, and that an employee's chances of spotting a phishing email are as slim as hitting a specific number on the roulette wheel.

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Think you can spot a phishing email? Think again

Phishing password

People may not be as good as they think they are at spotting phishing scams, according to researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Dr Casey Canfield, Missouri S&T assistant professor of engineering management and systems engineering, worked with Carnegie Mellon University colleagues Baruch Fischhoff and Alex Davis on the study, which measures how well people’s confidence in their ability to detect phishing matches with reality.

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Cybercriminals target Thomas Cook customers in the wake of the company's collapse

Thomas Cook

The collapse of travel firm Thomas Cook has caused chaos for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers around the world. But if losing out on planned trips was not bad enough, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the confused situation to scam customers out of their money.

There have been numerous reports of fraudsters pretending to be representatives of either Thomas Cook or a bank, using the promise of a refund to get people to part with bank account details.

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Why we get hooked by phishing attacks

Phishing

What makes us click on phishing links? A new study from Webroot has surveyed 4,000 office professionals from the US, UK, Japan and Australia to find out.

While a majority (79 percent) of people report being able to distinguish a phishing message from a genuine one, 49 percent also admit to having clicked on a link from an unknown sender while at work.

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Phishing attacks against the Apple brand reach 1.6 million in six months

Phishing

There have been 1.6 million phishing attacks targeting the Apple brand name in the first half of 2019. This is up nine percent on the total number of attacks seen last year, revealing a growing trend.

These figures come from Kaspersky's Threats to Mac Users Report 2019, released this week, which shows the number of cases where users faced fraudulent web pages utilising the Apple brand as a decoy has increased significantly in the first six months of the year.

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Phishing attacks target UK SMBs

Phishing

According to a new study 43 percent of UK SMBs have suffered phishing attacks involving attempts to impersonate staff in the last year.

More concerning is that of those attacks 66 percent were successful in compromising data. The study from security and data anlaytics company CybSafe also finds only 47 percent of those surveyed say they have already got a cyber security training and awareness program in place.

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Enterprise security pros spend too long researching suspicious URLs

URL bar

Phishing threats tend to be fast moving, so the ability to block them quickly is essential for protection.

But a new survey finds that even large companies with multi-layer security controls and multiple threat feeds lack adequate safeguards to protect their employees from phishing attacks that employ links to malicious sites.

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Phishing and credential stuffing remain top threats

Phishing password

As we have seen in another report today, the financial sector remains a prime target for cybercriminals. Phishing attacks and credential stuffing are the two most common forms of attack used against the industry according to another report from Akamai.

In the six months between December 2018 and May 2019, nearly 200,000 phishing domains were discovered by the research and 50 percent of all unique organizations impacted are from the financial services sector.

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22 percent of businesses hit by phishing attacks in the last quarter

Phishing

In the past three months 22 percent of businesses have suffered a data breach as a result of an email attack according to a new report.

The study released by email security platform GreatHorn spoke to more than 1,000 professionals to get a better understanding of the current state of enterprise email security.

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Summer heightens cyber security risks

Beach sunset

You might think that cyber attacks are a constant year round activity, or perhaps that they are focused on peak shopping periods like Christmas. But a new study from threat protection specialist Lastline reveals many security professionals believe their organizations are more at risk in summer.

In a survey of 1,000 security professionals more than half believe cyber attacks are seasonal and 58 percent of those (30.5 percent overall) say that they see more attacks during the summer months.

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Impersonation attacks focus on payroll and supply chain

Deception man woman

Impersonating a company's CEO or other senior executive has become a favorite technique for cybercriminals seeking to extract payments from businesses.

Historically this has been aimed at accounts payable departments, but the latest email threat report from FireEye shows attackers using two new variants to target payroll and supply chains.

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