Security Awareness Training

Security Awareness not Just for Employees

March 1, 2021 by Eric Magill

An article I read this morning on one of my security web sites reminded me of the need for small business executives to understand that when it comes to cyber security awareness, they are also employees — but with a twist — they hold the keys to the kingdom.

While a higher percentage of CEOs and business owners now recognize the threats small organizations face from hackers than they used to, it is likewise true that cyber criminals have recognized the value of attacking them directly because they have access to the most sensitive information a company handles.

The article I read pointed to a discovery by researchers at the security software developer Trend Micro that found that 45 percent of the phishing attacks they studied directly targeted the CEO’s email address rather than everyone in the organization (anecdotally, I have seen an increase in direct attacks on CEOs, as well).

Also known as “whaling” because the CEO is considered the big fish in a company, that’s almost as many attacks against the CEO as everyone else in those organizations combined. Managing Directors and Chief Financial Officers are also frequently targeted at 9.7% and 4.8%, respectively.

What makes this important is that I encounter executives who at times consider themselves to be almost immune to the attacks their employees face.

From the article, quoting Ryan Flores of Trend Micro, CEOs and other top executives sometimes view email security mechanisms or policies as “an inconvenience to them” and because of that, they behave like they are “an exception to the rule.”

I offer this blog less as an admonishment of SMB executives as a reminder that they, too, are as susceptible to Social Engineering attacks like phishing and whaling emails as their employees. Executives need to be even more vigilant, though, as these attacks increasingly focus on them specifically and the sensitive nature of what they know and have access to.

To create a culture of Cyber Security that starts from the top down in the hierarchy of your organization, contact me personally at ericm@threatucation.com or 302-537-4198 to discuss a Cyber Security Awareness Training program tailored to you and your employees.

Auto-Forwarded Emails Costly to Small Organizations

January 16, 2021 by Eric Magill

One of the least publicized but most dangerous cyber attacks against small businesses involves auto-forwarding emails to cyber criminals.

Hackers use Social Engineering tactics like phishing emails to con email login credentials out of unsuspecting users. The hackers then use those credentials to set up the compromised accounts to automatically forward the victims’ emails to themselves.

From there, the hackers can collect the victims’ forwarded emails to perform all sorts of frauds including Business Email Compromise attacks, Payroll Diversions, blackmail, extortion, malware infections, and the resale of Personally Identifiable Information or proprietary files.

The FBI considers it enough of a threat to warn businesses about such attacks after seeing losses from BEC’s in the U.S. of more than $10 billion from 69,384 victims from 2013 to 2019.

We have seen this attack ourselves at a client that lost more than 8,000 emails to the attackers before the scheme was discovered four months after an auto-forwarding rule was installed in an email account.

The lost emails included the PII of the client’s customers. The client had to notify each customer and offer free credit checks for a year. Had there been more than 500 PII records stolen, the client would have suffered the embarrassment of notifying the media.

In a typical BEC attack, a hacker pilfers the email user name and password of the victim with a phishing email that warns that their email account has been compromised and they need to log into their account and change their password.

Of course, the link in the phishing email takes the victim to a fake web page that sends the user’s original password to the hacker while the victim mistakenly believes they have protected their account by changing their original password.

The hacker then watches the victim’s account for emails with, say, suppliers and, mimicking a legitimate contact from one of those emails, sends a fake invoice that looks authentic enough that it is paid by the victim’s company.

The hacker might also jump into an email chain between the victim and a supplier about an order and submit their own quote or proposal to the victim in a malware-laced attachment.

To protect yourself against a forwarded email attack, consider these options:

If you use Office 365 in your business, your system administrator can set an alert to notify you if email forwarding has been set up to automatically forward an employee’s emails. That forwarding rule can then be deleted.
If you use another email program or service, routinely check your account for any auto-forwarding rules that you did not set.
If your email service allows it, prohibit automatic email forwarding to external email addresses.
Be wary of quotes, proposals and other emails seeking payments that do not match the tone of the contact you routinely work with or have spelling or grammatical errors. In those cases, call the contact if something seems amiss.

The FBI provides more information on BEC attacks here.

For help with disabling auto-forwarding emails, you can call us at 302-537-4198 or use our Contact Form to email us.

SMBs Not too Small to Hack

January 7, 2021 by Eric Magill

A colossal data breach like the one of Solarwinds should serve as a reminder that small business owners, too, need to keep an eye on their cyber security measures.

While data breaches at small businesses don’t generate those kinds of headlines, they do cause pain in the affected SMBs including not only financial losses but also operational disruption and loss of time and reputation.

In the past year, 35 percent of small businesses who experienced a data breach either closed their doors or filed for bankruptcy, according to a survey of 1,006 small business owners by the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Additionally, in a 2019 Ponemon Institute study, 66 percent of SMBs said they suffered a cyber attack in the previous year, 69 percent said an attack eluded their intrusion detection system, and 57 percent reported succumbing to Social Engineering attacks like phishing emails.

The fact is, you’re not too small to hack.

Cybercriminals continually tune the efficiency of their mass attacks on small organizations because they handle the same types of sensitive information as large enterprises but don’t have the sophisticated security measures that big companies deploy.

They have also learned to target specific small businesses because of the unique value of their data or because of their relationships with larger companies.

So, the need for SMBs to pay attention to their data’s security has never been greater.

But, just how do you protect your data without breaking your bank account?

In its Q1 2020 Wave Security Awareness and Training Solutions document, titled “Behavior and Culture Reign Supreme over Awareness and Punishment”, Forrester Research determined that the best security awareness training vendors aim to change negative employee behaviors by fostering a culture of cyber security within organizations.

Threatucation’s motto has always been “Creating a Culture of Cyber Security in Small Organizations”. We have long championed this approach over phishing email simulations designed to punish an employee with a bad score for succumbing to a phishing test.

While phishing simulations are part of Threatucation’s Cyber Security Awareness Training program, we really create a culture of Cyber Security with our unique policy-based approach that helps employees understand the reasoning behind the policies, the ramifications of violating them to the company, co-workers, customers and board members, and how to recognize and properly react to cyber attacks.

The whole process takes just 3 steps, starting with a Cyber Security Risk Assessment to ensure the security measures you ultimately choose to protect your business actually match your data security requirements.

For a free, no-obligation Cyber Security Risk Assessment for your business, contact us at info@threatucation.com or 302-537-4198.

Data Breaches pose grave threat to SMBs

September 14, 2020 by Eric Magill

One of the most frightening and controversial statistics used in cyber security and cyber insurance advertising regards the impact a data breach has on a small business.

As the narrative goes, 60% of small businesses file for bankruptcy within six months of a breach. That number is often attributed to the National Cyber Security Alliance.

That’s a frightening number for obvious reasons but controversial because the National Cyber Security Alliance says it never stated or reported that figure.

So perhaps in response to the controversy that has embroiled the organization for the past half-dozen years over that claim (google it to see how many times it appears in the search results), the Alliance commissioned a survey of 1,006 small business owners and CEOs to get a better handle on what the actual figure might be.

The results aren’t a whole lot more encouraging.

More than one-third of small businesses responded that they filed for bankruptcy or closed their doors after a successful cyber attack. That’s 25 percent who filed for bankruptcy and 10 percent who went out of business.

That’s certainly not in the 60 percent stratosphere but it should give small business leaders enough pause to ensure that their cyber security measures meet their data handling needs.

In addition, 63 percent of small businesses in a 2019 Ponemon Institute study conducted for Keeper Security said they had suffered a data breach in the previous 12 months. Keep in mind this is just the percentage of small businesses that suffered a data breach, not the actual number that were attacked, which is 100 percent as every SMB receives phishing emails on a regular basis.

I state this often but it bears repeating often — you cannot protect your business with guesses. You must know what risks your specific business faces to make the most cost-effective decisions regarding the cyber security measures you need. The only way to do that is with a Cyber Security Risk Assessment.

If you need help with that, call Threatucation at 302-537-4198. Mention this blog post and we’ll conduct a free, no-obligation Cyber Security Risk Assessment for you.