Accidental data breaches are often compounded by a failure to encrypt

83 percent of security professionals believe that employees have accidentally exposed customer or business sensitive data at their organization. Accidental data breaches are often compounded by an organizational failure to encrypt data prior to it being shared – both internally and externally – putting their organizations at risk of non-compliance with major data privacy regulations,…

Exposure of sensitive data via cloud applications and services increases 20%

To identify top threats, the Dtex researchers collected and analyzed information from work-issued endpoints across more than 300,000 user accounts. Proprietary, cloud and personal accounts such as email were included in the total. Assessed organizations spanned multiple industries across North America, Europe (EMEA) and the Asia Pacific Region (APAC). The results are available in the…

How email fraud tactics continue to find new life

Almost as soon as email became widely used, crooks and scammers began using it as a means to defraud people. In today’s world, malicious fake emails continue to be a huge problem for individuals and businesses. Businesses make lucrative targets Losses due to BEC scams are escalating, and criminals are targeting organizations with emails that,…

Most impersonated brands in email attacks? Microsoft and Amazon

Nearly two-thirds of all advanced email attacks used emails impersonating Microsoft or Amazon, according to new research by Agari. Microsoft was impersonated in 36 percent of all (brand) display name impersonation attacks in the third quarter. Amazon was the second most commonly impersonated company, used in 27 percent of these attacks. Amazon and Microsoft run…

6.4 billion fake emails sent every day

The Valimail Q2 2018 Email Fraud Landscape shows that fake email continues to be a serious problem, with an estimated 6.4 billion fake emails sent every day. That total includes only exact-domain sender spoofing, in which senders put a fake email address in the From: field of their messages. This is one of the most…

State of Email Security: What Can Stop Email Threats?

A survey of 295 professionals — mostly but not entirely IT professionals — has found that 85% of respondents see email threats bypass email security controls and make it into the inbox; 40% see weekly threats; and 20% have to take significant remediation action on a weekly basis. Email security firm GreatHorn wanted to examine…

Vulnerability in GnuPG allowed digital signature spoofing for decades

A vulnerability affecting GnuPG has made some of the widely used email encryption software vulnerable to digital signature spoofing for many years. The list of affected programs includes Enigmail and GPGTools. About the vulnerability (CVE-2018-12020) CVE-2018-12020, dubbed “SigSpoof” by Marcus Brinkmann, the researcher which found it, arises from “weak design choices.” “The signature verification routine…

Most top US higher ed institutions fail to protect students from phishing

88.8 percent of the root domains operated by top colleges and universities in the United States are putting their students, staff and other recipients at risk for phishing attacks that spoof the institution’s domain, according to 250ok. Phishing and spoofing attacks against consumers are likely when companies do not have a published Sender Policy Framework…

BEC scammers actively targeting Fortune 500 companies

Nigerian scammers are targeting Fortune 500 companies, and have already stolen millions of dollars from some of them, IBM Security researchers have found. Their strategy is well known: they take over or impersonate a trusted user’s email account to target companies that conduct international wire transfers, and trick accounts payable personnel into wiring money into…