2020 beware of corporate phishing

Those who, in the early days of the new year, expected a lull in cyberthreats will have been disappointed by the first reports that track the risks of attacks in the enterprise environment for 2020. Even for Italy, unfortunately, the outlook is not good; it is certain that cybercriminals will use increasingly sophisticated techniques, but among the most serious threats, particularly because it exploits the human factor, is phishing. In the coming months will come attacks that can exploit the most sophisticated social engineering techniques to steal information. Although phishing is a serious problem for all of us, corporate and government users will be the ones targeted with the most intense attacks, designed to lure them into making a mistake that will lead hackers to gain access to the enterprise network by obtaining login credentials. Unlike stealing information by infecting computers with malware, phishing is a more devious technique, developed to collect data by asking for it with clever scams. Phishing attempts can take place via text message, or via telephone, but the method that has always been most widely used is email, and will still be in the 2020s.

Perfect forgery

The level of email forgery is now so high that it is becoming increasingly difficult for users to distinguish a real electronic missive from a fake one. A classic example is receiving an email that appears to come from the boss or a colleague, asking for verification of login credentials, via a link that leads to a fake site identical to the corporate one. It is not uncommon to run into scams called BEC (Business Email Compromised attack) in which a fake executive instructs an employee to make a transfer by arranging deposits to an account he or she controls. Equally dangerous are attacks called “clone” attacks in which hackers intercept genuine emails and replace them with fake emails containing malware. If once it was only the most experienced hackers who succeeded in carrying out these types of cyber attacks, the situation is now even more serious, since real “phishing” kits are being sold on the dark web that allow even the least experienced cyber criminals to generate concentrated attacks. Obviously, although the last line of defense is users who should pay much more attention to the emails they receive before responding or opening a suspicious link, an e-mail service with high security parameters can solve the problem.

Hypergrid proposals

Hypergrid ‘s Secure Email is a secure and efficient service that uses encrypted connections, and technologies that guarantee the identity of the sender. In addition, the service includes antivirus checking of all mail in transit and the use of indispensable spam filters. The latter, in addition to being constantly updated, can be customized according to the needs of users, the company or the public administration. Secure Email also makes it possible to manage address book and shared calendars in order to meet the organizational needs of every business reality.
For those who need it, automated mailing list management and the ability to create filters on attachment types are offered. Of course, there is no shortage of autoresponder, alias and automatic forward functions. Of paramount importance when talking about maximum protection is the H24 availability of HyperGrid’s technical staff to solve any problems and provide evidence about message transactions between mail servers, protecting service users against senders using insecure mail services. But that’s not all, for companies and public administrations that have their own mail servers there is a service suitable for providing maximum protection. It is called HyperGrid Mail Outpost and is designed to integrate transparently with existing e-mail servers in order to thwart spam, phishing activities and viruses transmitted via e-mail. This service, managed and monitored directly by HyperGrid, analyzes email messages and their attachments in real time, allowing precise control of information in transit. Constant verification culls the volume of unwanted messages before they enter the corporate network, and it is possible to classify spam by creating rules related to the behavior of each individual user and verifying the central HyperGrid database for message validation in real time. The level of security is guaranteed by TLS (Transport Layer Security), SPF (Sender Policy Framework) protocol and DKIM  which verifies the integrity of the sender’s address. It should also be noted that by blocking junk mail HyperGrid Mail Outpost is also able to improve the performance of mail servers.

For more information contact us at info@hypergrid.it