Is your organisation ready to tackle the new challenge of QR code phishing, also known as quishing? In this TechNewsWorld article, Dr. Steve Jeffery discusses the latest carrier of choice for payloads via email.

The allure of airline status and points, along with the abundance of personally identifiable information (PII) of customers and employees, make the airline industry a prime target for threat actors on the dark web. Depending on the goal of the actor and the nature of the stolen data, criminals can find airline-specific materials for sale on a variety of markets. Nick Oram, security operations...

It’s not news that most enterprises operate in the cloud. Migration to the cloud leads to better collaboration, data storage, and lower costs compared to on-premises resources. Odds are your organization is currently enjoying the conveniences of the cloud. The cloud has reshaped the way organizations operate, but with the migration comes new obstacles in email security, and the cloud has its own...

As we approach the end of the year, LastPass Labs has reviewed the last 12 months to take account of the threat environment and how it has changed, as well as our accomplishments. Throughout 2023, the Threat Intelligence, Mitigation, and Escalations (TIME) team focused on rapidly expanding our capabilities to protect our customers from phishing sites and/or infostealers. A major part of this...

QR phishing is currently considered a high priority risk capable of bypassing existing security controls, according to the latest article from Cyber Security Intelligence. QR Phishing, otherwise known as Quishing, is an extension of phishing attacks that is gaining popularity among threat actors who understand many email systems have difficulty reading the contents of the code. Similar to...

Threat Background & History Beginning in the first half of 2022, Fortra has monitored a significant ongoing upward trend in fraud activity originating from various Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) operations. Some of these services have thrived, while the popularity of others has diminished. One PhaaS operation that has notably been present throughout the past two years is known as Strox (aka Strox...

Fortra’s PhishLabs has identified two separate incidents of new Google top-level domain (TLD) .zip used in phishing attacks. The attacks, detailed in the September issue of Cyber Defense Magazine, use .zip to impersonate a social media conglomerate and global technology company. Look-alike domains using common file extensions are increasingly used to enhance the perceived legitimacy of cyber...

According to Forta’s Phishlabs, credit unions became the top targeted industry on the dark web in Q2, surpassing banking institutions for the first time since we began reporting on this data in 2021. Financial institutions as a whole experienced the vast majority of abuse, with compromised credit card data leading all threat types on the dark web. Every quarter, Fortra’s PhishLabs analyzes...

Because email remains the most ubiquitous form of business communication, it continues to be a favorite attack vector for cybercriminals. Email has always been vulnerable because it was not originally designed with security or privacy in mind. As a result, email security vendors emerged to protect this critical communication channel. In the early days, many vendors used signature or reputation...

The US healthcare sector continues to be aggressively targeted by ransomware operators. Royal and BlackCat are two of the more recent – and highly sophisticated – ransomware threats. These two new flavors of ransomware pose serious potential impacts on the healthcare sector, but there are appropriate mitigation and defense strategies that organizations can take to protect against them. What is...

In Q1, Credit Unions nearly surpassed Banking Institutions as the top targeted industry on the dark web . Just under 36% of stolen card data on dark web platforms was linked to Credit Unions, marking the fourth consecutive quarter the industry has seen an increase in malicious activity. Every quarter, Fortra’s PhishLabs analyzes hundreds of thousands of attacks targeting enterprises and our...

The dark web is a haven of stolen goods and data, and limited visibility into activity targeting your brand leaves organizations at risk. Malicious behavior takes many forms, and a lack of understanding of what or how an asset is exposed on underground channels can lead to brand damage and financial loss. Detecting stolen data on the dark web is demanding, as navigating volatile marketplaces can...

Bad actors use the dark web to exchange compromised data and goods anonymously, often unnoticed by the victim organization. Malicious activity can manifest in many ways on underground channels and, because of the technical obstacles associated with accessing the dark web, visibility can be limited, making it difficult to know which assets might be at risk. If sensitive information is left...

Ransomware and phishing are usually put in two separate categories when cyberattack methodologies are discussed. However, ransomware operators are increasingly leveraging phishing tactics to deploy their malicious payloads, and the potential for compromise is exponentiating as a result. Ransomware and Phishing - a match made in heaven Phishing is the number one delivery vehicle for ransomware...

In Q4, Dark Web activity targeting Credit Unions reached its highest count in five consecutive quarters, according to Fortra’s PhishLabs. Attacks on Credit Unions jumped significantly during the second half of 2022, with threat actors advertising stolen card data from these institutions almost as frequently as National/Regional Banks. Data tied to financial institutions is considered especially...

Phishing sites impersonating reputable organizations continue to represent the top online threat to businesses and their brands. In Q4, Financial Institutions were targeted most by credential theft phish, experiencing the largest share of malicious sites recorded since 2021, according to Fortra’s PhishLabs. Within the group, criminals capitalized on the broad customer bases and recognizable names...

Cybercriminals are increasingly using steganography to hide malware in phishing attacks targeting businesses. Read Digital Journal’s interview with Alyn Hockey , Fortra’s VP of Product Management, to learn why this tactic is particularly difficult to detect, and what security teams can do to avoid falling victim. Check out the article here .

“Whaling” phishing fraud attacks target the C-suite of a company which creates high risk of extremely sensitive, mission-critical data being stolen and exposed. Fortunately, protecting the organization from these attacks is possible. Whaling phishing is a type of phishing attack targeting larger, high-value targets, which is why it's called "Whaling." Attackers themselves often pretend to be C...

​Organizations face a growing danger from phishing and ransomware, which have been the most common forms of cybercrime in recent years. Most businesses have fallen victim to phishing or ransomware attacks at some point. Every business needs to act against the growing threat of phishing, the primary method through which ransomware and other malware are spread. On the bright side, organizations have...

Email fraud is on the rise. Phishing emails were the most often used attack type last year, according to numerous reports, including the ENISA Threat Landscape 2022 report. The highest financial losses are reportedly attributable to phishing and business email compromise (BEC) assaults, in which the attacker poses as a coworker or senior executive at a company via email. Email scams are so popular...