New Technology May Help Hook Spear Phishers

Just when we think there is no hope for hooking the phishers, a company comes out with a product to put up a good fight. In this case, Fijitsu has created “a technology that detects targeted email attacks in real time by detecting suspicious behavior that is different from the normal activity patterns.” Those “normal patterns” are what the product has learned over time from various associations found in a collection of operational logs, including the users' normal email habits and from the websites the users visit after looking at email messages.

This is in response to the vast numbers of email-based spear phishing attacks that take place all the time. According to security company Cloudmark, these cost companies in the neighborhood of $1.6 million per incident.

Such targeted attacks intend to steal private information such as financial account information, customer data, and intellectual property. Hackers do this by pretending to be someone from another company with which the victim’s company may do business (such as HVAC repair), or perhaps by just building a relationship with an individual and requesting information.

Targeted attack emails are tricky to detect using the traditional anti-malware because they are individually written. There is no pattern to distinguish them. Therefore, it is important to know what to look for so you can detect them.

• Pay attention to email that requests confidential or sensitive information and take measures to verify their legitimacy. For example, if a high-ranking person at your company asks for money to be wired somewhere, place a separate call or new email message back to verify. Don’t reply to that same message. The phishers are clever and will just respond with the information to confirm that it should be done.

• Avoid clicking links and opening attachments received in email messages. These often direct you to websites that can download malware that may do any number of things from install a Trojan to spying on you.

• Look for clues as to the authenticity of the message. Typos and grammatical mistakes are common in phishing email messages.

• Don’t just blindly believe anything you read in email. If, for example, you receive one that claims pest control will be stopping by to inspect the office, ask questions. Again, don’t reply to the email or call a number in that message. Use another means such as walking to the requestor’s office or placing a call separately to confirm.

Spear phishing crimes run the gamut of types. They range from for profit attacks and wire fraud to state-sponsored on government agencies or businesses. There have been some recent high-profile spear phishing attacks including Anthem, Sony, and even dating site Ashley Madison. It is also suspected that the OPM breach was a result of a successful spear phishing ploy.

The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) released a report late last year showing that all types of spear phishing are on the rise and the FBI alerted the business community in Q4 last year that there was a 270% increase in business email compromise (BEC) attacks over the first three quarters of 2015.

Spear phishing appears to be a sport to the cybercrime community. But don’t get hooked. Read email messages closely and follow processes put in place to protect company information. Then, when the phishers come trolling, you won’t take the bait.