On Monday, May 4th, **FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority), issued a warning to financial companies stating that a new email phishing campaign was doing the rounds. According to the regulator, the campaign is ongoing, widespread, and made to look as though the emails are coming from FINRA itself.
With the rise of remote work, especially in recent months, and the number of net-connected devices rising all the time, email is more relevant as ever. Indeed, as a form of unobtrusive communication and document sharing, email has pretty much cemented its position as the go-to tool for businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately, being the popular kid in school is not always a good thing – for a start, it has a way of making you look like an easy way in.
By this stage, everyone is familiar with the phrase ‘social distancing’ and what it means with regards to shopping trips and exercise outdoors. Social distancing, as we all know by now, was introduced to slow down or, more hopefully, stop the spread of Coronavirus. Many companies are taking steps to enable as many people as possible to work from home.
Email scams are nothing new, just about everyone has heard of that one Nigerian Prince for example, but there is another phishing scam doing the rounds and unsurprisingly it is Coronavirus flavoured. Gmail users alone are being targeted with up to 18 million phishing email hoaxes every single day. Of course, it doesn’t end there with ‘regular’ email users – healthcare professionals are being targeted also.
Hackers and cyber criminals have evolved social engineering tactics to trick unsuspecting individuals into divulging private information or valuable credentials. One such evolving tactic is typosquatting, a form of social engineering attack that tries to lure users into visiting malicious websites with URLs that are common misspellings of legitimate sites.
Not only have Global banks stopped customers transacting or ordering currency from Travelex, many have stopped transactions with third party currency providers altogether. Lloyd’s, Royal Bank of Scotland, Tesco and Sainsbury’s all receive their currency from Travelex. It has been reported by Travelex that no customer data has been compromised although no report has been publicly provided to explain how this has been determined.
Phishing is a broadly understood risk when it comes to internet security – it’s the process by which data thieves will attempt to infect your system with a virus by sending an authentic-looking communication that tricks the recipient into a clicking a malicious link. As phishing becomes a more established method of data theft and virus infection, however, data thieves are specialising – which leads to new terms.
The largest hospital system in New Jersey said it paid an extortion fee to hackers who had disrupted medical facilities with a ransomware attack. A spokesperson for Hackensack Meridian Health, based in Edison, New Jersey said it was working to restore its computer systems following a Dec. 2 ransomware attack that forced administrators to cancel roughly 100 elective medical procedures.
Email encryption is one of the most vital aspects of email security. It is the process of sending emails to a recipient by disguising the content of the message. The idea is to make it harder for third-parties, whom the content is not for, to read the content within the email. Email encryption will often include authentication that the receiver is the intended person to read the content.
Spyware and malware are both considerable threats when it comes to your computer’s security. Whether it’s your home computer used for general surfing, or a whole network of computers used in your business or place of work – when malware or spyware infect, they can cause considerable damage. Spambrella offers a range of malware protection services designed to help protect you from both malware and spyware – but what are they?
