Phishing Trends
For those of you that follow our blog here at i.t.NOW we covered phishing just a few weeks back. Our friends over at KnowBe4 recently released a new infographic that summarizes some of the recent trends they’ve been seeing. Feel free to check out their original post here.
Social Media
Social media can sometimes be a dangerous place, and hackers are leveraging all of the major social media sites to get you to click on their bait. Linkedin as you can see above is one of the biggest offenders. Hackers are playing on human emotions and using FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to get folks to click on their fraudulent links.
When you think you have a new friend, or a new post, or that you’ve been tagged in a picture, it sparks human emotion. It makes us curious, and we want to check it out. Hackers know this and leverage it to get us to click so they can start to gather our personal information.
Security
Ironically, another huge category for phishers is security. Essentially one of the new and more devious tricks is to send you an email saying that a password reset is needed. These fraudulent emails can mimic the real ones with great accuracy. If you’re anything like me you start freaking out whenever you have a password reset email that you didn’t initiate. They leverage that to get us to click. If they’re really lucky you’ll put your real password into their fake site to “reset” it, and then they’re in.
Don’t fall for it. Take an extra beat to examine these emails. Where do they come from? Does all the information look legit? If you’re in doubt you can almost always call to verify. Take the time to do so, and keep your accounts safe.
Tracking
Almost every online purveyor of merchandise in existence has automated email replies that will give you a status on your order. Many times they’ll also give you tracking information. Hackers know this, and are using it to their advantage.
They’ve started sending out fake receipts for online purchases as well as tracking numbers. When you click the tracking link it does bad stuff. As somebody that buys a lot of stuff online, and loves getting packages, I find myself particularly vulnerable.
Take a beat. Think it through. Don’t click if it doesn’t make sense.
There are a lot of threats out there and they’re evolving all the time. i.t.NOW has partnered with KnowBe4 to offer an online training program to educate users against phishing security threats. We would love to discuss how you can leverage this to keep your business safe.
