The technological landscape of the world is ever evolving, in unison with that evolution our reliance on tech grows too. Unfortunately, this reliance on technology has opened the door for illicit activities to be carried out by cyber criminals.
AsiaCloud’s AC360 Shield is a product in the AC360 family – it centres around email protection, security, and backup. We will explore what AC360 Shield is and how it can help you in the next article, but first let’s explore why it is necessary.
Phishing attacks
Phishing scams are one of the most popular tools in a cyber criminal’s arsenal. They are by some way the easiest attack to attempt, email is relatively undefended and requires educated teams to defend them which usually most don’t have.
Email breaches originate predominantly by using false identities, but can come in a variety of different forms.
The most common form is impersonation. Cyber criminals will impersonate someone they think the recipient may trust. Some of the most commonly impersonated are Netflix, banks, or even government departments. The message itself is written in a way that invokes a sense of urgency in the recipient and requires them to act, such as telling them they need to update their credit card or pay an overdue invoice.
Deception is they key driver to making this form of attack successful. That trust in the brand of alleged sender, and the urgency of the message, is used to draw the victim into clicking on a link that is embedded within the email. This link will take them to a website, that falsifies itself as the brand entity or company, which is then used to collect the information that the cyber criminal wants to steal.
Methods used by the Phishing scammer
‘The Human Firewall’ – your systems first line of defence. It is essential that your team know what to look out for if a scammer slips through the net into their inbox.
If your team are educated, then their first approach to any and every email they receive must be to approach with caution until they can verify its legitimacy.
Deceptive Phishing
Deceptive phishing is one of the most common forms of Phishing scam, it involves the cyber criminal imitating a well-known and trusted organisation. The message is cleverly designed to make the victim behave erratically and convey a sense of urgency in an attempt to panic the victim into disclosing sensitive information. The email will likely contain a message designed to rush you along, and may look something like this - “Click link to verify identity” or “Unverified account log in, click link to identify”
Spear Phishing
Spear phishing is a more targeted technique, it involves the cyber criminal performing some background research on the victim, this way they can pose as an individual or entity known to them personally. Cyber criminals are not lazy, they will do whatever necessary to gain access to your sensitive documents. Fraudsters will search the victim’s social media profiles in order to learn about them, this way they can imitate a trusted person well enough to sneak through undetected. Scams like this can be successful because victims often think it’s unlikely that they will be targeted as individuals.
CEO Fraud
CEO fraud involves the scammer imitating a company CEO or other similarly high-status individual within an organization. Cyber criminals communicate with company employees and ask them to perform tasks and transactions that would normally be unauthorized, they do this armed with publicly sourced information about the person they’re impersonating.
The cyber criminals cleverly fabricate stories as to why the requests are valid in the hope that your team comply – they know that most wouldn’t directly disobey what they thought to the boss.
In the following article we will explore AC360 Shield and see how it can help you avoid the ramification of the above attacks.
Cloud Computing
AsiaCloud Solutions provides high-quality, reliable, and cost-effective Managed IT services to help your organisation succeed with IT. We offer a combination of enterprise-grade technology along with a fast, scalable, personalised service. We provide world-class IT you can rely on at affordable prices, with our specialists supporting you with a proactive service from right here in Singapore. Contact us now and find out what we can do for you.
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