Given the group transmission to remote work, more sensitive business information is being transmitted by email than ever before. Users can now receive more than hundreds of emails a day, and going through every email is a time-consuming and tedious task.
Going through with that skyrocketing sound, it’s unimaginable that there’s a growing email weakness. Unfortunately, that weakness makes it more likely users will click on a malicious email without even knowing it – which explains why 94% of Trojan is now transmitted via email.
Analyzing recent examples of email adversaries not only ensures you are aware of the various ways attackers are exploiting victim’s inboxes, but it’s also the initial step to encounter the rising threat.
Some Recent Attacks via Emails
Although Spam is now counted as an old-school technique, cybercriminals still use it for malicious purposes. The unauthorized and unsubscribe spam email is a technique used by attackers to filter their mailing lists and verify email addresses. When a user clicks on an unauthorized link in a spam email, they are confirming to the spammer that their email address is correct, active, and monitor regularly. From there, the user can be targeted to receive more email attacks with more malicious payloads.
More than 80% of reported security incidents are via Phishing accounts. A recent example happened this past May when Nobelium (the gang behind the well-known SolarWinds attack) utilized a phishing attack to drop backdoor Trojan on more than 150 different organizations. Another prime phishing attack includes Five Rivers Health Centers in Dayton, Ohio, where more than 155,000 patients had their protected health data exposed for two months due to an email phishing attack. In 2020, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the U.K. was researching more than 10,000 phishing scams that exploit public fears of the epidemic.
Moreover, 95% of all the attacks on enterprise networks are the outcome of successful lance phishing. In November 2020, the co-founder of the Australian hedge fund, Levitas Capital, was a victim of a whipping attack, which is a form of spear phishing. While the attack cost the company worth $800,000 – quite a bit less than the $8 million originally targeted – it also outcome in the loss of the hedge fund’s largest client. In the end, the business was required to permanently close.
In the year 2019, the cybersecurity survey revealed that 26% of organizations globally were targeted of one to 10 business e-mail compromise (BEC) attacks. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), BEC scams were the priciest losses of approximately $1.8 billion. Current BEC attacks include abusive attacks on:
- The Puerto Rican government, which amounted to $4 million.
- Shark Tank Host, Barbara Corcoran, which amounted to $380,000.
- And Japanese media giant, Nikkei, who transferred $29 million based on guidance in a fraudulent email.
What is the Importance of Emails in the Attacker Approach?
Cybercriminals constantly sharpen up their email strategies by playing on a victim’s emotion/: generating fear, exploiting greed, taking advantage of a user’s curiosity, asking for help, or appealing for users to feel empathy or sympathy. This approach is often used by ransomware-as-a-service attackers.
In the ransomware-as-a-service model, a malware group gives these attackers, known as distributors, the tool to transmit ransomware, while the distributor’s goal is to harm as many computers as possible. It is a similar distribution model that SaaS biggies like Salesforce.com utilize. To improve their effectiveness, cybercriminals now use artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to extend their email attacks.
Sadly, users don’t even know that their systems are infected. Trojan can lay inoperative for a duration of time or go undetected. Advanced persistent threats (APTs) go undiscovered an average of 71 days in the Americas, 177 days in EMEA, and 204 days in APAC.
Given its achievement, we can expect cybercriminals to constantly generate emails a star in their attack strategies.
To stop or mitigate the risk of an attack, a business has three obstacles that must be utilized in analogy.
- Constant user education on what new attacks look like
- Advanced anti-malware that gives multi-layer strategies to stop attacks in their ways.
- Circumstance plans to revert and manage an attack, mitigate the harm, and recover as quickly as possible.
Multi-layered Strategies Provide the best Email Security
When we talk about email security, a one-and-done approach never works. Trojan will get through a single defense, so a solution must provide multiple layers of protection. That’s why, if malware prevents one defense, a consequent layer will stop it. Consider the following multi-layer protection program:
- An anti-spam engine that decreases the risk of bypassing unwanted spam mails.
- Anti-evasion technology that avoids advanced evasion tactics that utilized fixed files and anonymous URLs.
- Threat Intelligence to avoid emerging threats from infiltrating your email.
- Detection to avoid advanced attacks, like APTs and zero-day attacks that ordinary defenses miss.
- Anti-phishing engines to avoid any type of phishing attack before it reaches the user.
- Anti-spoofing tactic to preserve user protection against social engineering and payload-less attacks.
