Cybercriminals fight dirty, whether it’s attacking small businesses, large enterprises, or individuals who just want to watch Netflix. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do for the community; you’ll always be a target for hacking attacks. To save time and effort, hackers will use low-tech attacks and social engineering attacks to target individuals. Hackers aren’t developing new threats all the time; if anything, they largely use existing exploits, purchasable software, and social engineering to take advantage of people.

It is so important to keep your business secure nowadays. Statistics show this to be the case. Don’t believe us? We can share a few of these stats and explore what they mean, just to prove it.

Passwords are one of the most important parts of keeping any account secure, and if you were to gain access to these accounts, you’d have access to personal data, subscriptions, money, and even the victim’s identity. Today, we want to show you just how easy it is to steal a password and gain access to an account.

There is no denying that Quick Response codes—better known as QR codes—are a handy little invention. Just a few years ago, many businesses heavily adopted these contactless communication tools, allowing customers with a smartphone to access menus, documents, and more with ease. Having said that, we unfortunately can’t deny that cybercriminals are taking advantage of how handy QR codes are, too.

Phishing is a common issue that businesses of all kinds can experience, whether they are a small startup or a large corporation. Hackers are always trying to extol information from your employees, including account credentials, remote access to your systems, and in some cases, funds directly from a bank account. It’s up to you to teach them how to identify and respond to phishing attacks.

You know the old phrase, “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link?”

It’s a pretty good idiom, but when it comes to cybersecurity, I think the idea is worth revisiting. It’s not that you aren’t as strong as your weakest link, or in terms of cybersecurity, it’s not that you aren’t as secure as your most vulnerable endpoint…

You are less secure the more users you have.

Phishing is a remarkably dangerous tactic used by hackers to take advantage of those who might not be quite as in-the-know about security practices. Phishing attacks can be carried out against both businesses and individuals alike, and due to the many different forms these attacks can take—including email, text message, and even fraudulent websites—they can be quite problematic.

Phishing has become one of the great problems for technology users in the 21st century. The ironic part of the whole thing is that it has taken a good old-fashioned social engineering scam to make today’s robust information systems less secure. Phishing is the predominant way that hackers and scammers gain access to the systems they target. Today, we’re going to spell out what to train your employees on to help them identify phishing attacks. 

It doesn’t take much to get us to start ranting about the dangers of phishing, and it’s a topic that we won’t stop talking about for some time. Unfortunately, phishing comes in enough forms that it isn’t always so simple to spot. For this week’s tip, we just wanted to run through the different formats phishing can take, focusing on how to identify each type.

It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means: lots of gift-giving and online shopping. Regardless of what you and your family celebrate this holiday season, you should be prepared to handle the influx of phishing attacks which always surface around this time every year, including both the usual methods and the more sophisticated ones.

We often talk about scams and cyberthreats, and lately our advice for dealing with a potential phishing threat is to simply avoid it altogether.

How often do you get emails from individuals claiming to be working with a business who wants to do business with yours or sell you a product, completely unsolicited and even perhaps a bit suspicious? These types of messages can often land small businesses in hot water, as it only takes one phishing email landing in the wrong inbox at the wrong time to put your business in jeopardy.

What is Smishing?

When cybercriminals use phishing scams, they aren’t using advanced technologies to crack their target’s digital defenses. Instead, they hack users by exploiting the assumptions, bad habits, and ignorance of the target to get them to release sensitive information.

Attackers circumvent cybersecurity measures by sending messages purporting to be from an authority figure or trusted contact, thereby convincing the user to undermine their protection. A notorious example of phishing is the email from the persecuted royal family, known as the "Nigerian Prince scam."

How Ransomware Works

Imagine for a second the surprise you would have if you tried to log into your computer and you were presented with a message telling you that your files have been encrypted and that you need to pay in Bitcoin before the clock runs out or you will lose those files forever. Then you noticed the clock clicking down. Would you panic? You probably would. That is ransomware, a particularly ugly malware that could cost you everything. 

The Cozy Bear Threat

According to the National Cyber Security Centre, a government security organization based in the United Kingdom, a hacking group known as “APT29” (also referred to as “the Dukes” or “Cozy Bear”) has actively targeted the research centers conducting research into developing a COVID-19 vaccine. These claims have been supported by both the United States’ National Security Agency and Canada’s Communications Security Establishment.

You would think that since millions of phishing attacks are ignored, set to spam, and actively mitigated each month, that there wouldn’t be such a desperate effort to educate people about the signs of phishing attacks, but the fact remains that it only takes one successful phishing attack to compromise an entire workstation, network, or computing infrastructure. 

Today, everyone that works for your company will need to be able to spot and report a phishing attack. Doing so can sometimes be extremely difficult if the spammer does his/her homework. Consider using and teaching these tips to keep your business from being a victim of a phishing attack.

First, it will help to briefly review how each attack works.

How Ransomware Works

Imagine if you tried to log into your computer, only to be presented with a message that your entire computer had been encrypted, and that (unless money is transferred to the perpetrator, often through cryptocurrency, within a period of time) the contents of your device will be wiped. This is precisely the experience of someone victimized by a ransomware attack.

How Phishing Works

Remember those old scams, where the target would receive an email from some nobility or long-lost relative that asked for a sizable loan or investment (all to be paid back with interest, of course)? These are phishing scams, known as such because the scammer responsible simply distributes a message and waits for someone to take the bait. As time has passed, these schemes have become much more effective - and harder to spot.

These Attacks Can Easily Cooperate 

Cybercriminals have taken to pairing these attacks together to help them take advantage of as many targets as possible. Let’s run through a fairly typical scenario that someone using both may subject you to, and how you can spot these kinds of joint efforts.

Let’s say you open your business email to find a message that appears to come from the Microsoft Support team - which, unnoticed by you, actually reads “Micrrosoft Support” in one or two places. According to the email, there’s a hugely serious security issue affecting systems across the board, which is why Microsoft is supposedly sending out these emails, with the necessary fix bundled in as an attachment.

Trouble is, this isn’t actually a fix to an issue - it’s actually an executable file that installs ransomware when you try to apply the “security fix” and creates a huge problem.

This is exactly why these two distinct attacks combine so well… by incorporating phishing strategies into the distribution of their ransomware, a cybercriminal has the ability to boost how successfully their ransomware can infect the users that are targeted.

How to Spot Phishing to Avoid Ransomware

There are assorted warning signs that a message is a phishing attempt that you should always keep an eye out for in order to protect your business. For example:

• Details are off - In keeping with our above example, how likely do you think it is that “Micrrosoft” would send out an email in which they misspelled their own name? While this is admittedly happening less in phishing emails, the same goes for the small things that are easily overlooked. Was the email in question sent from “user at example.com”? Or, was it actually sent from “user at exarnple.com?” Tricks like this are common ways that cybercriminals will try to pull the wool over a user’s eyes.
• There’s excessive urgency - To keep users from paying too much attention to the minutiae of the email - like the “off” details we just discussed - many cybercriminals will write their phishing messages to instill a sense of urgent panic. If an email starts to make you panic, collect yourself and look at it more objectively.
• There’s a link or an attachment - As the preferred means of delivering a ransomware payload or other issue, attachments or links to websites present no small amount of risk, especially if they are received unexpectedly. If at all possible, avoid accessing these without reaching out to the sender to confirm their legitimacy through another method of communication.

There are many other steps you need to take to protect your business from these insidious threats - from keeping a comprehensive backup to user training to applying spam filtering to your email. Coleman Technologies can help you implement them - give us a call at (604) 513-9428 to get started.

The past few years have seen some of history’s greatest data breaches. For instance, the most notorious of these attacks, the Equifax breach, Yahoo, and Marriott-Starwood, resulted in a combined total of 3.5 billion accounts breached.

This means, statistically speaking, you would have a pretty good chance of picking a data breach victim of the past few years by randomly selecting two human beings from the entirety of planet Earth’s population.

Crunching the numbers, there has been an increase of security breaches of 67 percent since 2014.

What Does this Mean? Is Anything Secure Anymore?

Interestingly, there is a plus side to these enormous data breaches happening in the public eye, thanks to a few key points:

• It brings attention to these kinds of crimes - Thanks to disasters like the Equifax breach, more Canadians are aware of the impact of cybercrime. This kind of awareness is crucial to encouraging improved security.
• There is too much data for cybercriminals to practically use. This one can be chalked up to statistics… the more data that a given cache has, the less of a chance that your data is pulled up in an attack.

To clarify, we aren’t trying to sugarcoat the severity of a data breach, but having said that, the past few years’ cybersecurity threats have really given us all an example to consider. With new compliances, regulations, and other mandates being put into play, businesses are certainly considering these threats.

What About Small Businesses?

There is a tendency to overlook small businesses when discussing data breaches. After all, the ones that have struck large targets (like Yahoo, Target, eBay, Sony, and many others) almost always get a headline, along with the attacks that focus on municipalities, like the ones that targeted Wasaga Beach, Ontario and Midland, Ontario with ransomware.

What aren’t heard about so much, unfortunately, are the attacks that lead to much smaller companies shutting their doors for good… a side effect of the limited number of victims per attack, and the relatively casual approach that many have towards security. Unfortunately, a Verizon survey shows just how misguided the assumption that a smaller business size will protect it from threats, when 43 percent of businesses breached would be classified as small.

Security Needs to Be a Priority

Fortunately, there are ways that you can reinforce your business’ cybersecurity, especially with the help of Coleman Technologies and our experienced cybersecurity professionals. Call (604) 513-9428 to get in touch with us, so we can help evaluate and fulfill your business’ needs.

What is Social Engineering?

Think of it like this: online, you have some type of social currency. Your personal information, your data, your interactions, your profiles, they all add up to your online life. If someone were to use that information to trick you into providing them access to your secure online accounts, you would be the victim of a social engineering attack. 

Basically, a hacker uses what amounts to the fundamentals of human psychology to gain unauthorized access to an account. Rather than exploiting a vulnerability within a system’s technology, a social engineer will take advantage of the human resources to gain access through relatively simple psychology.

Successful social engineering can be the result of many different actions. Some include: carelessness by an individual, perceived kindness, reaction to fear, and business as usual. Let’s take a look at these actions and how social engineering schemes work as a result.

Individual Carelessness

When there is a lack of diligence carried out by an individual, there are openings for a social engineering attack. This includes trash thrown out with information on it, keeping login credentials out in the open, and other careless actions. It’s important that you and your staff understand that the best practices of password protection, such as using a password manager, are crucial to maintaining the integrity of your company’s network and infrastructure.

Perceived Kindness

Many people won’t think twice about helping someone that asks for help. Social engineering attackers take advantage of the better angels of our nature, by using people’s helpfulness to gain access to secure computing resources. Any person can fall for this type of attack. This is why we stress that in order to keep your digital and physical resources secure, a critical eye for potential intrusion works. That doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk, but if a situation is presented to you that’s out of the ordinary, take anyone’s helplessness with a grain of salt.

Business as Usual

When we picture a hacker, we all tend to think about them the same way. They are brooding people sitting in a dark room typing away at a computer. In social engineering attacks, this couldn’t be further from the truth. A popular social engineering tactic is to gain physical access to a large business--where there are often a lot of moving parts--and then spend time at the business looking for ways into secure digital environments. This could also include straight hatchet jobs, where your employees would help people outside of your business sabotage your access control systems. 

Reaction to Fear

Finally, fear is one of the best motivators. By striking fast and threatening all types of negative consequences if a worker doesn’t help them get into a secure computing system, this kind of cyberattack can be a major problem. 

Coleman Technologies Can Help Protect Your Business

If you are looking to secure your network from cyberattacks, including social engineering, the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies can help. Call us today at (604) 513-9428 to learn more about how we can help you with the training you need to keep social engineering from causing problems for you.

What Exactly Is Phishing?

The practice of phishing is not new. It has been used for much of the past decade. The strategy goes like this: hackers use deception to get a user to provide their own credentials, thus giving them unknowingly to the hacker. The hacker then accesses the account legitimately (as the user) and has free reign over the entire account. Sometimes they will go in and siphon data and sometimes they will hijack the entire account, but regardless of the hacker’s intentions a successful phishing attack is a successful transfer of power over an account. 

What’s worse is that you can get phished in multiple mediums. Email is the predominant channel where phishing attacks are carried out, but people can (and do) get phished over social media, instant message, or via text message. There are even phone-based or snail mail phishing attacks that direct users to go to a fake website where they would provide their credentials and/or personal information. 

There are even different forms of phishing based on their intended targets. The general strategy behind traditional phishing attacks is to send emails out to as many people as possible, hoping to snare unwitting recipients into their phishing nets. Today, with more personal information available about people, there is phishing that targets individual people. This is called a spear phishing attack. Then there are spear phishing attacks that are carried out against business and organizational leaders. These are called whaling attacks. The intended imagery aside, phishing attacks are getting more direct, more deceitful, and more serious. 

Spotting Phishing

For all of the bad news surrounding phishing attacks, there is some undeniably good news: with a critical eye, you can tell when you are being phished. You aren’t going to fall for these types of attacks if you know what to look for. Today, we’ve put together a short guide on how to determine if you are dealing with a phishing attack and how to proceed when you are.

Look for Warning Signs

There are a litany of warning signs that will help you spot a phishing attack. Most of them are pretty obvious, and some of the more subdued ones come with telltale signs. 

Does the message have spelling and grammar mistakes? 

Not many businesses will send out official correspondence with grammar and spelling mistakes. This should be the first sign that something is amiss. Most phishing messages come from supposedly-reputable organizations and while a spelling or grammar mistake does happen from time-to-time, several mistakes won’t happen.  

Does the message deal with curious circumstances? 

One of the biggest telltale signs that you are dealing with a phishing attack is the tone of the message that is received. Does the message reference immediate situations that need to be remedied? Does it mention money or illicit a sense of fear or anxiety? If it has these elements, it’s probably not legitimate. Think about it: most organizations that need you to act immediately will have specific ways of contacting you and that correspondence will make it clear that you are dealing with a legitimate organization.

Does this message have a trusted URL?

Most phishing attacks will redirect to a website that is set up by the hacker. You probably shouldn’t be clicking on any links sent to you in an email unless you are sure who sent the email. One way to determine whether or not a link is from a reputable source is to mouse over the link and see where the link goes. If you get an email from Amazon and the link goes to amazorn.com, you are staring at a phishing email.

Protecting Your Assets

There are a couple simple ways to ensure that you or a member of your staff doesn’t fall for phishing attacks:

• Use technology. A spam blocking filter on your email will go a long way towards removing unnecessary and potentially-malicious emails from hitting employee inboxes in the first place.
  
  
• Training. Make sure your employees are trained to spot and properly handle attempts that may come through. By starting with the end user, you’re taking away a lot of the power that phishing has.

At Coleman Technologies, we appreciate the importance of secure workplace practices. If you’d like to learn more about phishing, and how we can help stop it from hurting your business, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.