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PHISHING DETECTION MONTH: Casting a wider net in the fight against cybercrime

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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Phishing attacks remain a major cyber threat for organisations in the UK’s public and private sectors. These often sophisticated scams can cause significant financial losses, data breaches, and reputational harm. Fortunately, advancements in phishing detection solutions are empowering CIOs to stay ahead of cybercriminals. Let’s explore the key recent and future trends in this critical area, based on input from attendees at the Cyber Secure Forum…

Recent Trends:

  • Machine Learning (ML) and AI-powered Threat Detection: Advanced analytics powered by ML and AI are revolutionizing phishing detection. These systems can analyze emails in real-time, identifying suspicious language patterns, URL anomalies, and impersonation attempts that traditional filters might miss.
  • Email Spoofing Detection: Phishing emails often spoof legitimate sender addresses. Advanced detection solutions can analyse email headers, sender domain names, and other technical indicators to identify spoofing attempts.
  • Integration with Security Awareness Training: Phishing detection works best when complemented by effective security awareness training for staff. Modern solutions can integrate training modules to educate employees on recognizing phishing tactics and reporting suspicious emails.
  • Focus on User Behaviour Analysis: Emerging solutions can analyze user behaviour patterns. Deviations from normal behaviour, such as clicking unusual links or opening suspicious attachments, can indicate a potential phishing attempt.

Future Trends:

  • Simulating Phishing Attacks (Phishing Simulations): Simulations allow organizations to proactively test their employees’ ability to identify phishing emails. These simulations create a realistic learning environment and reinforce best practices.
  • AI-powered Content Analysis: AI can go beyond analysing text and can now analyze images and attachments within emails. This allows for detection of sophisticated phishing attempts that use malicious code or embedded threats.
  • Focus on Dark Web Monitoring: Cybercriminals often sell stolen credentials or information on the dark web. Phishing detection solutions can monitor the dark web for mentions of the organization or its employees, enabling proactive mitigation strategies.
  • Decentralized Email Security: As email security protocols evolve, phishing attempts might shift to decentralized communication platforms. Phishing detection solutions will need to adapt to address threats across a wider range of communication channels.
  • Behavioural Biometrics for Email Verification: Emerging technologies might analyze a user’s typing style, mouse movement patterns, or other behavioural factors during the login process. Deviations from normal behaviour could indicate a compromised account potentially being used for phishing attacks.

Benefits for Organisations:

Implementing these trends offers several benefits for UK organisations:

  • Reduced Phishing Attacks: Effective phishing detection solutions can significantly reduce the number of successful phishing attempts, protecting sensitive data and financial resources.
  • Enhanced Security Posture: A robust phishing detection system contributes to a stronger overall security posture, reducing the risk of cyberattacks.
  • Improved Staff Awareness: Integration with security awareness training empowers employees to identify and report phishing attempts, creating a more vigilant workforce.
  • Reduced Downtime and Recovery Costs: By preventing successful phishing attacks, organizations can minimize security incidents, downtime, and associated recovery costs.
  • Improved Compliance: Strong phishing detection demonstrates a commitment to cybersecurity, which can be beneficial for compliance with industry regulations or data protection laws.

Phishing attacks are constantly evolving, but CIOs have an array of powerful tools at their disposal. By embracing these trends in phishing detection solutions, organizations can create a more secure digital environment for employees, data, and critical infrastructure. This translates to a more resilient and cyber-aware workforce, better equipped to defend against sophisticated phishing threats.

Are you looking for Phishing Detection solutions for your organisation? The Cyber Secure Forum can help!

Financial sector subject to cyber attack ‘death by a million cuts’

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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BlackBerry’s Global Threat Intelligence Report states that threat actors focusing efforts on targeting high-value data held by the global financial sector, with one million attacks logged over the 120 day period.

This “death by a million cuts” is revealed to be using mainly commodity malware, which indicates a large number of independent actors targeting the industry in pursuit of financial gain. Critical infrastructure attacks, including those targeting government, financial, healthcare and communications industries, altogether accounted for 62 percent of industry-related attacks over the report period, September to December 2023.

The BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence team registered a 27 percent uptick in novel malware to 3.7 new malicious samples per minute prevented by its AI-powered cybersecurity solutions, compared to 2.9 per minute in the previous reporting period. Overall, BlackBerry claims its cybersecurity solutions stopped 31 attacks every minute, a 19 percent increase on the last reporting period.

“We’re consistently seeing increased volumes of attack in highly lucrative industries using novel malware,” said Ismael Valenzuela, Vice President of Threat Research and Intelligence at BlackBerry. “Novel malware typically indicates specific motivations from threat actors towards particular attack targets with intent to evade defences, which are often based on static signatures. We’ve reached a pivotal point where traditional detection methods alone are not enough to combat this increasingly complex problem. AI is already being weaponised by malicious entities, so it must equally be the dominant tool for detection and defence.”

Highlights from the latest BlackBerry Global Threat Intelligence Report include:

  • 62 percent of industry-related attacks targeted critical industries: Digitization and the prospect of debilitating national infrastructure attracted notorious gangs and Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) groups who attempt to exploit security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities for varying motives.
  • Commercial enterprises also under attack: 33 percent of all threats targeted commercial enterprises (including retail, manufacturing, automotive and professional services), with the majority (53 percent) of those deploying information-stealing (Infostealer) malware with the aim of accessing highly sensitive data.
  • Rapid weaponization of CVEs by Threat Actors: Ransomware gangs observed taking advantage of new Zero Day vulnerabilities and mass mobilizing against potentially vulnerable targets, with zero-day exploits motivating profiteer groups.

Based on its data analysis, the BlackBerry Threat Intelligence and Research team predicts that 2024 will bring an increase in attacks targeting critical infrastructure and other profitable segments. VPN appliances will likely remain desirable targets for nation-state-level threat actors and it is anticipated that there will be a continued increase in supply chain cyberattacks targeting hardware and software vulnerabilities. Further, APAC will likely see an increase in attacks from China and North Korea, particularly financially-motivated attacks.

Photo by Jeffrey Blum on Unsplash